‘Politics behind killing of Tarlac mayoral candidate’

SAN JOSE, Tarlac, Philippines – The family of slain mayoral candidate Rudy Abella yesterday said the attack on the 73-year-old bet is politically motivated.

Abella’s daughter Lalaine said her father had no known enemies and she dismissed as farce the results of the police investigation that the killing was a handiwork of New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas.

“If NPA rebels shot our father, this should have been done a long time ago, but why only now when it’s election time,” she said in Filipino.

Abella, president of the Association of Barangay Captains and mayoral candidate of the Lakas-CMD, was gunned down by motorcycle-riding men during a campaign sortie in Sitio Sta. Cruz, Barangay Iba here last Monday.

Abella had just gone down the stage to listen to the speeches of his party mates when he was shot several times with a .45-caliber pistol and 9-mm revolver.

The gunmen also turned to his running mate, Judy Lauzanno, and poked a gun but did not shoot. They then sped away.

A civilian, Marites Pineda, was hit by a stray bullet.

Abella’s killing has sparked an outrage in this town where a Relic of the Cross is placed in the Monasterio de San Jose in Barangay Lubigan. It also triggered the relief of the station commander of this town.

Senior Superintendent Alfred Corpus, Tarlac police director, said Abella, a former policeman, might have been killed by NPA rebels, as his name was in their hit list.

Corpus said though investigators are not discounting the possibility that politics was behind the killing, but noted that this is “very remote” since Abella trailed re-electionist Mayor Jose Yap, younger brother of re-electionist Gov. Victor Yap and second district Rep. Susan Yap, in the surveys.       

But Lalaine said for the longest time, her father always traveled alone in going to the mountains and had not antagonized anyone, including NPA rebels.

Lalaine, who substituted for her father in the mayoral race, said that prior to the killing, her father received two phone calls that something would happen to him if he did not back out as a candidate.

Last Saturday, two days before he was killed, Abella again received another call.

“Why are you doing this to me? What wrong have I done to you? This is what I tell you: I am not afraid of you. My fight for the mayorship will go on,” Lalaine quoted her father as telling the caller in Filipino.

Lalaine also disputed the claim that her father was trailing Yap in surveys. “The opposite is the truth, it was my father who was leading and the support was overwhelming,” she said, adding her father had the support of all 13 barangay chairmen.

Philippine National Police chief Director General Alan Purisima said a special task group is determining the motive behind the Abella slay, and that he has ordered Corpus to resolve the case as soon as possible.      – With Ric Sapnu