Cops want murder charge vs Cagayan vice mayor amended

ILAGAN, Isabela — Police have petitioned the court to amend the murder charge against the vice mayor of a remote Cagayan town from being an accessory to a principal in connection with the ambush-slaying of four civilians here.

Senior Superintendent Nelson Nario, provincial police director, said they filed a petition with the provincial prosecutor’s office a week after the court allowed Vice Mayor Loreto Alipio Sr. of Buguey, Cagayan to post bail for his temporary liberty.

Alipio and his policeman-son, SPO2 Alipio Jr., along with three still unidentified companions, are facing four counts of murder and one count of frustrated murder for the killing of siblings Rolando, Nestor and Louie Castillo and one Fidel Susa last Nov. 7.

Alipio Sr. turned himself in to the Calamaniugan, Cagayan police last Dec. 26, after nearly three weeks in hiding. His son earlier surrendered after he had "mysteriously" escaped while under technical arrest at the regional police headquarters in Tuguegarao, Cagayan.

Father and son went into hiding in early December after Regional Trial Court Judge Jimmy Lucson issued arrest warrants for them.

The victims’ brother, Rofel Castillo, the lone survivor in the ambush, pinpointed Loreto Jr., as one of four gunmen who flagged down their passenger jeepney along an isolated stretch of the national highway in Barangay Naganacan in Santa Maria, Isabela.

Rofel claimed that Alipio Jr. and his three companions, armed with M-16 and M-14 Armalite rifles, fired at them, killing his three brothers and Susa on the spot.

Police alleged that Alipio Sr. owns the Revo van which the assailants used.

But Alipio Sr., a distant relative of the Castillos in Buguey town, has denied the allegations and blamed his political rivals for "fabricating" evidence and "conniving" with the victims’ families to pin him down as the mastermind of the ambush-killing.