P’sinan councilor shot dead in plaza

ALCALA, Pangasinan – A municipal councilor, who had reportedly received death threats over a land dispute, was gunned down at the barangay plaza here Monday night, police said.

Investigation showed that last-term Alcala councilor Juan Ablao, 55, went out of his house to stop children from igniting firecrackers at the barangay plaza.

Sangguniang Kabataan chairman Ericson Baguilod and a certain Juan Tolentino were passing by when they chanced upon the bloodied Ablao lying on the pavement with two bullet wounds in the head and back.

Ablao passed away while being rushed to the Don Juan Bautista Hospital in nearby Bautista town.

Alcala Mayor Manuel Collado told The STAR that Ablao, his party mate, had intimated to him about the death threats he had been receiving.

Collado said he believes that Ablao’s death was not related to the barangay and Sanggu­niang Kabataan polls on Oct. 29.

But he said he has set a meeting with all the parties involved in the polls to dispel rumors of a political angle in the killing.

Chief Inspector Laurence Sison, Alcala police chief, said they were eyeing a land dispute as among the possible motives behind Ablao’s killing.

So far, police have not found any empty shell or slug in the crime scene, prompting probers to suspect the gun used was a type of revolver.