No clues yet in Abra ambush

CAMP DANGWA, BENGUET — Police are still clueless in the ambush of an Abra fiscal and his bodyguards Thursday morning.

"We are looking at all possible angles," said Senior Superintendent Benjamin Magalong, operations chief of the Cordillera police.

"I don’t want to speculate this early in the investigation. We are considering what evidence is available at the moment," he added.

Provincial prosecutor Rodor Gayao, along with three companions — PO2 Alexander Bagani, Ruben Brillantes and his driver Jayson de Guzman — were cruising the highway in Sitio Bessang, Barangay Luzzuac in Peñarrubia town when his Nissan Sentra with license plate DPC 371 was fired at by three to four men at about 9:30 a.m.

Gayao, who was en route to the Regional Trial Court when the ambush happened, sustained a shrapnel wound in the left arm. Bagani was hit in the shoulder and head, and Brillantes, in the left elbow. De Guzman was unhurt.

"It’s a miracle that they came out alive," said Senior Superintendent Arturo Quilop, Abra police director, as he inspected the bullet-riddled car.

A passerby, Nancy Belena, of Barangay Malamsit, Peñarrubia, was hit by a stray bullet in the left thigh. She was aboard a motorcycle trailing Gayao’s car.

Investigators found empty M-16 shells at the ambush site.

Superintendent Rimas Calixto, intelligence and investigation chief of the Cordillera police, echoed Magalong’s statement that it would still be difficult to speculate on the attackers’ motive.

"We cannot rely on speculations while the investigation is going on," Calixto said.

In a statement, Gayao said he was confident the police would unmask those behind the ambush.

In the past months, Abra has been in the limelight due to a number of killings and ambuscades. Last month, two barangay chairmen in Peñarrubia town were killed during the Arya Abra festival.

Last March 26, Mayor Jose Segundo of Tubo town was gunned down in a remote barangay in his municipality. Until now, probers are still facing a blank wall on the case.

Late last month, a combined police-military team collared seven fully armed men, including a town councilor allegedly identified with a vice mayor, while reportedly positioned for ambush on a road in Tineg town. Probers, however, could not ascertain who their target was. — With Teddy Molina and Myds Supnad