Isabela leaders condemn murder

ILAGAN, Isabela — Despite their political differences, Isabela Gov. Faustino Dy Jr. and second district Rep. Edwin Uy have condemned Thursday’s murder of a Lakas-NUCD leader in Jones town.

Civil engineer Joaquin Soriano, chairman of Barangay San Vicente, was gunned down inside his home by seven men in camouflage uniforms.

Soriano was the municipal chairman of the ruling Lakas-NUCD party and municipal coordinator of the Bayan Muna party-list group.

Dy, secretary-general of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), said he has instructed Senior Superintendent Nelson Nario, provincial police director, to "exhaust all possible means to track down the suspects and bring them before the bar of justice."

Dy recalled seeing Soriano leading hundreds of supporters of Dr. Asuncion Abaya, Lakas-NUCD candidate in the May 12 special elections in the fourth congressional district, in a protest rally at the provincial capitol a day after the polls.

Abaya’s camp protested what they alleged was the switching and tampering of election returns in the special polls which former senior provincial board member Giorgidi Aggabao won.

For his part, Uy, provincial chairman of the Lakas-NUCD, vowed to bring Soriano’s murder to the attention of Philippine National Police chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr.

Uy cited reports alleging that Jones policemen were indifferent when Soriano’s neighbors informed them about the incident.

He claimed that Soriano’s participation in the special elections might have triggered his killing.

Soriano, a two-term member of the Jones municipal council and candidate in the 1998 and 2001 mayoral elections, served as Mrs. Abaya’s campaign manager in the special polls.

Meanwhile, the Fortunato Camus Command of the New People’s Army, which operates in the northeastern part of Cagayan Valley, has tagged elements of the Army’s 45th Infantry Battalion based in Jones town, to Soriano’s slaying.

In a statement, Victor Serbidores, spokesman of the NPA unit, alleged that the seven gunmen were identified as members of the 45th IB.

"Soriano was killed due to his reported ‘progressive activities’ being the municipal chairman of Bayan Muna in Jones town," Serbidores said.

Col. Guminto Perino, civil-military operations chief of the Army’s 5th Infantry Division, however, vehemently denied the allegations.

Instead, he said the NPA could be behind the killing because of suspicions that Soriano tipped off the military about the presence of Lourdes Mabanag, a medical officer of the NPA’s Benito Tesorio Command, in a nearby barangay, which led to her arrest.

Mabanag is one the military’s suspects in the ambush-killing of the commander of the 502nd Infantry Brigade last year. She was arrested in the poblacion of Jones town while about to board a Manila-bound airconditioned bus.