P.45-M reward offered in Isabela mayor’s slay

TUGUEGARAO CITY — The regional peace and order council is offering a P450,000 reward for the arrest of the killers of Mayor Jesus Sebastian Sr. of Jones, Isabela.

Nueva Vizcaya Gov. Rodolfo Agbayani, who chairs the council, said they informed President Arroyo about the reward during the joint meeting of the council and the Cabinet which she presided over here last Thursday.

"The President is so serious in getting the perpetrators of Mayor Sebastian’s slaying," he said.

In a report to the President, the council blamed the Benito Tesorio Command of the New People’s Army (NPA) for the killing.

Hours after the incident, the NPA unit issued a statement, signed by its spokesman, Delio Baladon, claiming responsibility for it.

Sebastian, 57, was shot dead by at least four hit men at the lobby of the municipal hall at about 8:30 a.m. last April 22, minutes after attending the regular Monday flag-raising ceremony in front of the town hall.

Six other armed men ransacked the mayor’s Nissan Urvan where they took a grenade launcher, three M-16 Armalite rifles, two 9-mm pistols and a caliber .45 revolver.

The gunmen, wearing Army uniforms, fled immediately after the shooting on board a green Besta van.

The NPA said a "people’s court" found Sebastian, a lawyer, guilty of human rights abuses, graft and corruption and involvement in illegal logging, charges which his family and friends vehemently denied.

Chief Superintendent Dominador Resos Jr., Cagayan Valley police director, said a murder case is being readied against the Benito Tesorio Command. — Charlie Lagasca