Barangay chief gunned down in Abra

BANGUED, Abra, Philippines – As the “everyday shooting” continues in Abra, perhaps regaining its tag as “Cordillera’s killing fields,” another one fell into assassin’s hands, this time a barangay chairman in Lagayan town. 

Collago barangay chairman Freddie Balucas Martinez, 47, tagged as a supporter of the CPP-NPA, was shot Monday in an early morning ambush while he, together with two others were walking toward another barangay. 

Abra police director Senior Superintendent Armando Laguiwid said gunmen opened fire at the barangay chairman, Leonardo Alcartado, 32, and Ireneo Martinez, 42, while they were walking along an uninhabited area toward another village.

Immediately, the barangay chairman fell down.

Out of fear, the village official’s companions ran away. 

Two witnesses told PO3 Reynaldo Fancuvilla, police investigator on case, they could not recognize the features of the suspects because they were hiding in an ambush position on the thick bushes, but only to remember that the three suspects were wearing camouflage military uniforms.  

The barangay chairman sustained multiple gunshot wounds. 

Investigators found four cartridge cases of M16 rifle, two cartridge cases of M14 rifle. 

Police also bared that residents are alleging that the village official was a supporter of the CPP/NPA and is providing food rations whenever the NPAs pass by his house.

More than a week ago, a personal bodyguard of an Abra regional trial court judge was peppered with bullets by bonnet-wearing gunmen right in his own backyard.

Efren Aquino alias Appeng, 40, a personal bodyguard of RTC Branch 2 Judge Corpus Cristi Alzate, was drinking with his villagemates in Barangay Sta. Rosa, in this capital town when the gunmen sprung from nowhere and peppered him with bullets from an M16 assault rifle.

Aquino sustained multiple gunshot wounds on the different parts of his body.  Scene of the Crime Operatives recovered eight empty shells of M16 Armalite where the victim was killed.

Alzate, whose sala was also ransacked of firearms being kept as evidences on April 7, this year, is personally interceding for the early solution of his bodyguard’s killing.

Carting away practically all firearms the court have been keeping as evidences to punish criminals and pin down the unending poll-related violence in Abra, never unidentified men managed to break into Alzate’s courtroom, just a stone-throw away from the Abra provincial capitol.