Pangasinan mayor ready to face investigation

MAPANDAN, Pangasinan — "I am willing to be investigated."

Thus said Mapandan Mayor Jose Ferdinand Calimlim in connection with last Wednesday night’s gunslaying of Vice Mayor Adolfo Aquino and his driver, Victor Villanueva, near the town hall and police station compound here.

"Yes, I am willing. There’s no problem with that. Not only me, but also any member of our family or members of the Sangguniang Bayan aligned with me are willing to be investigated," Calimlim said amid suspicions aired by Aquino’s family that politics had something to do with the killing.

Calimlim and Aquino used to be running mates in the 2001 elections, but their relationship went sour a month before the 2004 polls.

Aquino’s widow, Eden, earlier told reporters that everyone here knows that politics motivated her husband’s killing.

Calimlim quoted his father, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority director Jose Calimlim, a former Armed Forces vice chief of staff, as saying that the accusation is "grossly unfair."

"Napaka-automatic naman na pagbintangan ka dahil lang nagkahiwalay kayo ng landas sa pulitika (It seemed so automatic to hurl accusations at you just because you parted ways in politics)," Calimlim further quoted his father as saying.

The young Calimlim, who is in his mid 30s, said he understands the grief of the Aquinos, but said, "Please, they should not easily point an accusing finger without any basis."

"What about our family also?" he asked.

Calimlim described the atmosphere here as "quiet, but quite tense" after the gunslaying.

Majority of the municipal councilors and barangay officials wanted the police investigation to proceed to get to the bottom of the killing.

Calimlim met with them the other day to brief them on the killing. "Everyone was hoping for a speedy solution of the case," he said.

The local officials, he said, "(do) not (want) to aggravate the situation by giving unfounded comments, but to let the investigating body do its probe and help them with the proper information, and to be on guard and be security-conscious."

"We assure everyone that we will give full support to bring out the truth. That’s all we can only bank on as of now," Calimlim said.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Edgar Basbas, deputy provincial police director for operations, said probers have released an artist’s sketch of the gunman based on the description of Aquino’s brother Dabbie who tried to run after the attacker but was fired at.

Basbas heads Task Force Aquino which Philippine National Police chief Director General Arturo Lomibao created when he came here the other day to assess the progress of the investigation.

Aquino had just presided over the regular session of the municipal council and was talking to some people in front of a nearby store when he and his driver were shot several times with a caliber .45 pistol.

Basbas said the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group is expected to release another artist’s sketch of the gunman based on the accounts of the other witnesses.

He, however, said nobody, except Aquino’s brother, is willing to talk.

"Mainit pa ang sitwasyon dito, emosyonal pa ang mga tao pero overall, wala namang problema (The situation here is still tense. The people are still emotional, but overall there’s no problem)," he said.

Basbas said he will collate the reports of the investigation and intelligence units and scene-of-the-crime operatives and submit the consolidated report to Lomibao today.

Basbas said the 22-man Mapandan police force was relieved effective Thursday and Chief Inspector Efren Serenilla, director of the 107th Provincial Mobile Group in Tayug town, was named officer-in-charge.

Elements of the provincial police mobile groups in Tayug and Alaminos City are temporarily assigned here. — With Cesar Ramirez