Angeles mayor offers reward for Comelec official’s killers

ANGELES CITY — Mayor Carmelo Lazatin offered yesterday to pay a P2 million reward for any information leading to the arrest of the gunman and the mastermind responsible for the the killing last week of the city‘s deputy registrar of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Lazatin said he will provide P1 million while he asked councilor Vicky Vega to sponsor a resolution asking the city council to allocate another P1 million for the reward.

"We cannot let the killing be left unsolved and pinning down the people behind the crime will also be a form of protection for the Comelec personnel who still fear for their safety," Lazatin said.

But he stressed that he wanted the identification of both the gunman and the mastermind.

Comelec deputy registrar Ponciano Palo was fatally shot by a still unidentified gunman in front of his home at L & S subdivision in Barangay Sto. Domingo here Friday last week.

City registrar Cora Jane Baleros and other Comelec officials were meeting at his residence and witnessed the shooting.

Contrary to the earlier claim of Baleros that she was actually the target of the assailant, Angeles police director Senior Superintendent Jimmy Restua said investigators believe Palo was the gunman‘s real target.

"She was seated in an area that was even more exposed to the gunman than Palo," he said.

Palo’s remains were interred last Sunday, with his relatives declaring publicly they were willing to forgive his killers.

Central Luzon Comelec director Artemio Lambino earlier created a special task force to take over the functions of Comelec personnel who have remained in hiding in fear for their safety.

He said he will also pull out registration centers in a mall owned here by the politically influential Nepomuceno family which has major plans in local politics in the May elections next year.

As of yesterday, however, voters were observed still lining up for revalidation or registration at the temporary Comelec centers at the mall.

So far only about 7,000 have gone to the local Comelec centers for registration or revalidation amid estimates that the city has about 150,000 qualified voters.

Palo’s killing has built up tension between the camp of Lazatin of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats party and Nationalist People’s Coalition‘s Rep. Francis Nepomuceno, who is running for reelection, and his younger brother Robin Nepomuceno, who is running for mayor next year.

Lazatin is supposedly planning to either seek a third term as mayor or run for congressman.