Pampanga town administrator shot dead

MASANTOL, Pampanga — The municipal administrator of this town was shot dead by three still unidentified youthful-looking suspects in the public market some 300 yards from the municipal hall yesterday.

Local police chief Senior Inspector Oscar Veloria told The Star that Ignacio Viray sustained bullet wounds in the head, chest and abdomen and was dead on arrival at the Castillo Clinic here.

Veloria quoted witnesses as saying that the suspects tailed Viray while he was walking in the public market while the two sidled up to his left and right. The gunman fired from behind, hitting Viray in the head, the bullet exiting his forehead.

Veloria said the suspects fired more shots into the air to scare off the marketgoers as they fled on board a motorcycle.

The local police chief disclosed that Viray had confided to him two weeks ago that he was receiving death threats through text messages on his cellphone.

"We have no idea yet on the identities and motives of the suspects," he said, noting that none of the three suspects were known to the scores of marketgoers who witnessed the killing.

Veloria said that Viray’s wife owns a beauty parlor in the market area and the victim had been engaged in a business involving the recovery of metal scrap from the Pampanga river. — Ding Cervantes, Ric Sapnu