Ilocos Sur governor offers reward for info on assassins of Estrada witness

VIGAN CITY, Ilocos Sur — A P200,000 cash reward was put up by the provincial government for information leading to the identification and arrest of the killers of the provincial auditor and his driver who were ambushed in Bantay town Thursday afternoon.

The reward was announced by Gov. Deogracias Victor Savellano Friday night after probers encountered difficulty in solving the daylight murder for lack of witnesses.

Savellano appealed over the local radio for witnesses to come forward.

"Whoever can help in this incident should not be fearful so that the case will be solved at once, considering that the incident has affected us all in the province," the governor said.

This developed as provincial police director Supt. Fidel Cimatu Jr. told The STAR that a task force investigating the incident is not discounting three angles: sabotage, grudge, and alleged local anomalies.

On the sabotage angle, it was claimed that some elements may have wished slain auditor Agustin Chan Jr. dead after he testified in the Senate Blue Ribbon committee investigating graft charges against deposed President Joseph Estrada last year.

Cimatu said the task force is also looking for people who may have personal grudges against Chan as well as on alleged anomalies unearthed by Chan in the course of his official duties.

The tri-agency task force created Friday is headed by Sr. Supt. Dominador Ventura, deputy regional director for operations of Regional Police Office 1.

An old man’s testimony who confessed to seeing the killers 50 meters away as they pumped bullets into Chan and his driver Alex Regacho (not Recacho as earlier reported), the police director said, was fruitless as he did not see their faces well.

The old man was tending to his farm in Sitio Bacay, Barangay Taleb in Bantay town when the ambush occurred.

"No, there were no documents missing," Cimatu said as he denied earlier reports that the gunmen pulled out some audit reports from Chan’s car after the killing. "They should have taken the whole bag of documents instead of spending time choosing some of the documents before running away," he said.

He said that so far they were able to establish that there were three gunmen including the driver and the identities of registered owners of two cars bearing the numbers 118 in their license plates. He declined to identify them.

Meanwhile, Chan’s only son, 17-year-old Ian, a college student at the Saint Louis University, Baguio, burst into tears on seeing his father’s body inside a casket brought in from Ilocos Sur eight o’clock last night.

"Daddy . . . Daddy," were the only words that he uttered in between his lament as he bowed his head and wept on the glass of his father’s bronze-colored casket.

Chan’s widow Evelyn, 51, and her three daughters Emmylou, 27, Sheryl, 26, and Annalyn, 23, all wailed as they walked close, still disbelieving that their father, whom they all described as a thoughtful and loving husband and father, was already dead.

To her wife, Chan did not complain of any threat to his life in relation to his work except only once during the Erap impeachment trial.

The Integrated Bar of the Philippines Baguio-Benguet chapter, of whom the slain lawyer is a member, has condemned the killing and is urging national attention to the Thursday ambush.

Abelardo Estrada, president of the chapter admitted he was "shocked" after he was also informed that some documents were taken from Chan’s bullet-riden car.

"We cannot take this case sitting down and the perpetrators cannot get away just like that because this is not an ordinary killing," Estrada said.