No lead yet in slaying of Pangasinan vice mayor

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan – Investigators are still facing a blank wall in connection with the slaying of outgoing San Manuel Vice Mayor Bonie Apilado, 35, and the wounding of his driver Ricardo Clemente, 24, along the Maharlika highway in barangay San Vicente in Urdaneta City on Wednesday afternoon.

However, investigation by members of Task Force Apilado formed by Police Provincial Director Senior Superintendent Isagani Nerez immediately after the slaying is still going on.

Members of the task force include those from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, the intelligence and investigation branch of the Pangasinan Police Office, the PNP Crime Laboratory and the Urdaneta City and San Manuel Police.

Investigation showed Vice Mayor Apilado was talking with an owner of a car aircon shop when a lone gunman approached from behind and opened fire.

He tried to run away despite initial bullet wounds in his thigh and chest but one of the gunmen followed him and shot him twice in the head.

On the other hand, Clemente is now out of danger from one bullet wound below his left shoulder but he remains under heavy guard as the perpetrator might return and finish him off being a vital witness to the slaying of Apilado.

Police Regional Director Chief Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoil ordered a massive manhunt against the perpetrators, who were presumably guns for hire, including the mastermind.

At the same time, Senior Superintendent Michael Grona assumed as officer-in-charge of the San Manuel Police replacing Chief of Police Inspector Realito Rodriguez.

Teams from the Police Mobile Group and Regional Mobile Group all the way from Camp Oscar Florendo in San Fernando City, La Union arrived in San Manuel on Thursday to help the local police maintain peace and order.

Members of the victim’s family hinted politics as the motive behind the slaying but the police want more solid evidence that could stand in court and pin down the assassins as well as the mastermind.

All said the slaying of the vice mayor may have been just a continuation of several violent incidents that happened in the town before, during and after the election involving the camp of a rival candidate.

However, reelected Mayor Salvador Perez, who defeated Apilado in the last election, retorted the assertion of the bereaved family of Apilado when he said: “I will face the music if they have valid witnesses.”

He stressed, “the family could sue me in court if they have valid evidence to pin me down.”

But he clarified he could not fault the family for pointing an accusing finger at him but candidly asked newsmen who went to get his side on the matter, “in your opinion, what will be my purpose in killing him?”

Perez, now on his last term of office after he came back from one term break after seizing the mayorship uninterrupted for three terms from 1988-1998, said he and his son Alain Jerico, his running mate in the last election, were already proclaimed winners.

This proved, he said, that he already lost his reason in having Apilado eliminated.

Besides, he said, he won over Apilado in the last election by some 5,000 votes and more against the third candidate, Fernando Cauton, an incumbent councilor who was in far third. (PNA)