N. Ecija city exec survives ambush

GAPAN CITY — This city’s planning officer cheated death when two motorcycle-riding men believed to be guns-for-hire ambushed him yesterday morning.

Superintendent Rolando Santos, the city’s police chief, said engineer Ricardo Hernandez, city planning and development coordinator, 52, had just come from the public market when the gunmen aboard an unlicensed black Suzuki motorcycle and wearing helmets, overtook and fired at him.

The gunmen missed Hernandez as he stooped low to avoid getting hit. One of the gunmen then alighted from the motorcycle, approached and fired at him, hitting him in the left buttock.

The gunmen were about to finish him off but fled when residents, alarmed by the gunfire, came out of their houses. They sped toward Sitio Ginandusan in Barangay Pambuan, snaking their way to an irrigation canal leading to Barangay Baluarte and then to San Miguel, Bulacan.

Gapan City Mayor Ernesto Natividad, who rushed to the hospital to check Hernandez’s condition, said the victim has no known enemies.

"Of all the people I know at City Hall, he is friendly and always in a jolly mood," he said.

Santos believes that the attackers are neophyte guns-for-hire.

Police are looking into the possibility that the attack is related to talk that Hernandez would be named the new city administrator.

Natividad, however, belied this, saying, "In fact, I have not yet found anybody to become city administrator."

Hernandez has been the city planning and development coordinator since 1998 when Natividad first assumed the mayorship.