Pangasinan town mayor shot dead

AGNO, Pangasinan – The mayor of this coastal town was shot dead while playing mahjong in another residence Saturday night, police said.

Mayor Arthur Cabantac, 53, sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was brought to the Alaminos Doctors Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival, police said.

Senior Superintendent Isagani Nerez, Pangasinan police director, said he formed a task force headed by Superintendent David Rapisora, deputy police director for operations, to go after Cabantac’s killers.

Nerez said more policemen have also been deployed in this western town, which he lamented has had no shooting incidents – until the murder which claimed the life of the mayor no less.

Cabantac was playing mahjong in the house of a certain Cecilia Bosa at the corner of Zamora and Jaina streets, about 150 meters from the mayor’s, when he was attacked.

Nerez said the mayor had reportedly told his bodyguards to patrol outside Bosa’s house while he was playing mahjong. Nobody was wounded in the shooting.

Four empty M-16 shells were recovered outside Bosa’s house.

Probers were eyeing several motives behind Cabantac’s killing, including politics as he was allegedly at odds with some Sangguniang Bayan members, and personal grudge as he had aggressively carried out his programs and policies that earned him several critics.

Nerez urged witnesses to surface for the speedy solution of the case.

Binalonan Mayor Ramon Guico Jr., president of the Pangasinan Mayors’ League and the League of Municipalities of the Philippines, mourned the death of Cabantac.

He said he called for an emergency meeting among the mayors today to discuss how they could help Cabantac’s family get justice.

Guico also called on ranking officials of the Philippine National Police to step into the case.

“We have to seek assistance from the higher authorities because the series of killings of Pangasinan officials, including councilors, is already alarming,” he said.

Recently, the Pangasinan Councilors’ League expressed alarm over the unsolved killings of three councilors.

In April 2007, San Carlos City Mayor Julian Resuello was also gunned down in the city auditorium during their fiesta celebration. – With Cesar Ramirez