Ecija vice mayor-elect shot dead

CABANATUAN CITY — Armed men posing as well-wishers killed the vice mayoral winner in Gen. Natividad, Nueva Ecija shortly before midnight last Thursday, authorities said.

Slain was vice mayor-elect Joselito Cruz, 44, who belonged to the Bagong Lakas ng Nueva Ecija (Balane) party of re-electionist Gov. Tomas Joson III.

Inspector Rodolfo Racho, Gen. Natividad police chief, said Cruz was talking with a certain Miguel Trinidad in his frontyard when the gunmen arrived and greeted him, saying, "Magandang gabi Vice (Good evening, Vice Mayor)."

The two men shot Cruz several times, and then fled aboard a green van. Cruz did not reach the Premier General Hospital alive.

Scene-of-the-crime investigators, led by Rhoderick Armamento and Chief Inspector Cresencio de Asis, found a caliber .45 magazine, two spent 9-mm shells, four spent .45 shells and several live .45 bullets.

Senior Superintendent Luisito Palmera, provincial police director, said probers have a cartographic sketch of one of the killers based on the witnesses’ descriptions.

Elsewhere in Nueva Ecija, tension has gripped Cabiao town since Thursday night when the canvassing of election returns was suspended after the head of the municipal board of canvassers fell ill.

The canvassing was halted at 9 p.m. Thursday when Nydia Bolisay, the board’s head, complained about being dizzy to the dismay of the followers of re-electionist Mayor Gloria Crespo-Congco and her rival, Abundia Garcia.

Congco (Balane) was then holding a slim margin over Garcia (Lakas-CMD).

Tempers flared at the height of the canvassing when lawyer Arnold Castro engaged one of Congco’s watchers in a shouting match. Castro was later rushed to a hospital.

Another Garcia counsel, lawyer Placido Vallarta, was also thrown out of the Sangguniang Bayan hall for repeatedly questioning what he alleged to be irregularities in the canvassing.

Garcia’s camp deplored "selective brownouts" in four barangays which they claimed were part of efforts to cheat in the local polls. — With Ric Sapnu