3 local campaign leaders slain

MANILA, Philippines - A campaign leader of a Cavite mayoral bet and two campaign coordinators of a Negros Occidental congressional candidate were killed Saturday, as violence spiked in the run-up to the May 10 polls, authorities said.

In Cavite, Senior Superintendent Primitivo Tabujara, provincial police director, said Jose Eusebio, 54, campaign leader of Nacionalista Party mayoral bet and former Bacoor mayor Jessie Castillo, was walking in Barangay Niog 1 Saturday night when he had a brief argument with another man who later shot him at close range.

Eusebio sustained four gunshot wounds and died while being treated at the St. Dominic Hospital. His attacker escaped by boarding a “pedicab.”

Police are looking into politics as a motive behind the killing, but are not ruling out other angles.

Cavite first district Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya of the Liberal Party has asked the Commission on Elections to declare Bacoor an election hot spot, as houses of his supporters were fired upon.

Bacoor, Cavite’s biggest municipality with 270,000 voters, is a known bailiwick of the Revilla clan.

Its incumbent mayor, Strike Revilla, is seeking re-election, while his sister-in-law and former actress Lani Mercado is running for Congress against the Abayas. 

Mercado’s husband, Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr., is seeking another term. The Revillas are staunch supporters of the administration’s Lakas-Kampi-CMD party.

Negros ambush

In Negros Occidental, two campaign coordinators of Ted Lizares Jimenez, a congressional bet in the third district, were killed in an ambush in Barangay Canlandog, Murcia town.

Police identified the victims as Rogelio Garcia, 53, and Errol Lubrea, 41. A CAFGU member, Dennis Mahusay, 38, survived the attack.

Investigators said the victims were on their way home on board a motorcycle driven by Garcia when they were waylaid in Purok Paho, Barangay Canlandog at around 9 p.m. Saturday.

Eight empty 9-mm shells were recovered at the ambush site.

Jimenez condemned the ambush and urged the Murcia police and Senior Superintendent Manuel Felix, provincial police director, to conduct an in-depth investigation into the incident.

A day before the ambush, Garcia managed to gather a big number of residents from the barangays of Canlandog, Amayco, Caliban and Lopez Jaena to attend Jimenez’s campaign sortie in Murcia town, said Bambi Yngson, media liaison officer of the congressional bet.

Yngson said Jimenez’s staffers were also being harassed and threatened through text messages even before the Murcia incident.

Jimenez is running against businessman Albee Bantug-Benitez and Esteban Coscolluela, outgoing mayor of Murcia town.

Police, however, raised the possibility that the ambush may have been triggered by old grudges among several families in Barangay Canlandog, which have claimed the lives of a number of villagers in previous years.