Ex-Palace adviser's campaign leader shot dead

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga , Philippines  – Police yesterday said Angeles City may yet be included in the list of election hot spots in Central Luzon following last Thursday’s killing of a campaign leader of presidential adviser Edgardo Pamintuan who is running for city mayor.

“I have given orders to members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group to fast-track their probe so we can find out whether the killing was politically motivated. This will pave the way for the inclusion of Angeles in the watch list of the Commission on Elections (Comelec),” said Chief Superintendent Leon Nilo de la Cruz, Central Luzon police director.

He said so far, only the entire province of Nueva Ecija has been included in the Comelec watch list in the region.

At around 11 a.m. Thursday, Pamintuan’s campaign leader Jesse Barrameda was shot dead by one of two motorcycle-riding men in Barangay Pulung Maragul, Angeles City.

Barrameda was also the executive secretary of Barangay Pulung Maragul chairman Jojo Dimapilis.  

Pamintuan, official candidate of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD, said Dimapilis and his supporters were at the Office of the Ombudsman in Quezon City to file administrative cases against re-electionist Mayor Francisco Nepomuceno, of the Nationalist People’s Coalition, when Barrameda was attacked.

Nepomuceno’s information officer Joven Esteban, however, said the mayor has not released any statement on the killing.

“We learned about it late in the afternoon last Thursday and the mayor had a whole-day appointment elsewhere then,” he said.

Pamintuan, who had been the chairman of the Subic-Clark Alliance Development Council and president of the government-owned Northrail Corp. until his resignation recently, said Barrameda “had been my active campaigner especially among residents of Angeles who are originally from the Visayas.”

“(I) hope there is nothing political in the killing. Bloodshed is so unnecessary in politics,” he said. – With Ric Sapnu