P.8-M reward up in slay of Laguna councilor, aide

LAGUNA, Philippines – A P800,000 reward is being offered for the arrest of the two killers of a San Pablo City councilor and his security aide Wednesday afternoon.

In a phone interview yesterday, Laguna Gov. Jeorge Estregan Ejercito said he and San Pablo City Mayor Vicente Amante have contributed P500,000 and P300,000, respectively, for the early resolution of the killing of Councilor Edgardo Adajar, 55, and his bodyguard, Rolando Leonardo, 40.

Ejercito said Adajar was one of his supporters and leaders in San Pablo City in the midterm elections under the United Nationalist Alliance.

Aside from being a politician, he said Adajar was also a commentator in the local radio station Hot FM.

“He had so many enemies due to his job as a hard-hitting commentator,” Ejercito said.

He said he has instructed police authorities to form a special investigation team to go after the killers of Adajar and Leonardo.

Superintendent Carlos Barde, San Pablo City police chief, said Leonardo died while being treated in a hospital in San Pablo City at around 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Barde said probers are eyeing politics, work-related angle and personal grudge as possible motives in the killing.

He said the victims had just come from a cockfight arena in Barangay Concepcion and were on their way to their parked vehicle when a lone gunman approached Adajar and shot him in the head.

Barde said Leonardo came to the councilor’s rescue but was also shot twice in the head.

He said the gunman, wearing denim shorts and a baseball cap, escaped with his cohort on a motorcycle.

Chief Superintendent James Melad, Calabarzon police director, said probers are now conducting follow-up operations and looking for witnesses to help in the sketches of the triggerman and his accomplice.

Two former San Pablo City councilors were also killed in ambuscades in the past two years.

The first was board member Danny Yang who was slain in 2011, and the second, board member and retired police officer Reynaldo Paras last year.