Ex-Vizcaya town execs eyed in accountant’s slay

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya — Police are probing the possible involvement of certain former officials of this capital town in last Monday’s broad daylight killing of the municipal chief accountant.

However, Senior Superintendent Felix Caddali, provincial police director, asked that the identities of the former local executives be withheld pending further investigation into their alleged participation in the gunslaying of Bayombong chief accountant Ricardo Piedad.

Caddali said at least two eyewitness are now under police custody.

Piedad, who was to turn 60 today, died at the Veterans Regional Hospital here while he was being treated for gunshot wounds in the right armpit and abdomen, three hours after the shooting.

Piedad had just arrived from the town hall for lunch at his residence in Barangay Salvacion when two motorcycle-riding men attacked him.

Caddali said a former local official is being eyed as the alleged mastermind of the chief accountant’s killing.

Citing initial findings, Caddali said descriptions of Piedad’s killers and the motorcycle that they used matched those seen at the former local official’s farmhouse a few hours after the shooting.

"We have a number of witnesses who can attest that the gunmen (resembled) the two strange-looking men who went to the farmhouse of this local official," he said.

Caddali quoted witnesses as saying that the two men, one of them alleged to be a gun-for-hire from Abra, stayed at the farmhouse, about 30 kilometers from here, for less than an hour.

In a confidential report‚ Caddali informed Chief Superintendent Jefferson Soriano, Cagayan Valley police director, that the former local official was accused of misappropriating funds during his incumbency, of which Piedad was a vital witness.

Caddali said a joint investigation team, which includes the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, has been formed to crack the case.

"So far, we have two to three vital eyewitnesses to the gruesome killing. However, their identities are being withheld for security reasons," he said.