Lezo councilor gunned down,
PNP creates special task force to solve killing
BY BOY RYAN B. ZABAL

KALIBO, Aklan - The Philippine National Police (PNP) has created a special investigation task force to probe the killing of activist and councilor Fernando Baldomero.
Chief Superintendent Samuel Pagdilao, newly-designated police regional director, said the special task force that would lead the investigation is composed of the Crime Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the PNP Crime Laboratory.
Pagdilao also named Aklan provincial director Senior Superintendent Epifanio Bragais, Jr. to head the special task force to speed up the investigation.
“I also directed the provincial director to coordinate with the family members of Baldomero for their security. We need to gather concrete evidence to establish the motives and to identify those individuals responsible for the killing,” said the 53-year old Pagdilao, who assumed the Police Regional Office-6 directorship in a turn-over ceremony at Camp Martin Delgado in Iloilo City yesterday.

Pagdilao also assured the family of Baldomero that the PNP will investigate thoroughly the killing of the provincial chairperson of leftist party-list organization Bayan Muna (Nation First) and provincial coordinator of Makabayan (Makabayang Koalisyon ng Mamamayan) by two unidentified motorcycle-riding suspects.
Chief Inspector Aden Lagradante of the Kalibo PNP said the two suspects shot dead the 61-year old councilor outside his rented house while preparing to bring his son Philip to school at about 6:30 a.m. in Barangay Estancia, about half kilometer away from the provincial capitol, in the capital town of Kalibo.
While waiting for his 12-year old son to board his motorcycle, the older Baldomero, was shot without hesitation at close range by the gun-toting back rider suspect wearing a helmet.

Initial investigation showed that Baldomero, also a two-termer town councilor of Lezo, succumbed to two gunshot wounds in the neck and head. Baldomero was proclaimed dead on arrival when he was rushed to Dr. Rafael S. Tumbokon Memorial Hospital.
After the shooting, the suspects fled on board their black motorcycle. At the crime scene, the police recovered four empty shells of caliber .45 pistol and the motorcycle owned by Baldomero.
Baldomero, a native of Sta Cruz Biga-a, Lezo, Aklan, ran and won in 2007 as municipal councilor and was reelected in the recent local election. He was also the municipal coordinator of Liberal Party and member of the board of directors of the Philippine Councilors League in the province.

"As of now, we cannot pinpoint the suspects, although, we have witnesses in the daylight shooting of Baldomero," said Lagradante, who assumed as Kalibo police chief last July 1.

Police here admitted that they remain clueless of the identities of the suspects and they are entertaining several possible angles, including political motives. The local police in Lezo, Aklan said the victim received death threats and that the grenade throwing in the ancestral house of Baldomero last March 19 is most likely politically motivated.

No one was hurt when two motorcycle riding men lobbed a grenade that exploded in the kitchen area of the house of Baldomero in Sta Cruz, Biga-a, Lezo, Aklan. Another grenade failed to detonate when the suspects threw it inside the house, the police said.

Meanwhile, militant groups in Aklan on Monday mourned the death of Baldomero by holding an indignation rally in the junction of New Washington-Banga. Baldomero is the 145th Bayan Muna member to fall victim to extrajudicial killings in the country and the first activist and elected local government official slain under the Aquino administration.

Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro 'Teddy' Casiño, for his part, vehemently condemned the assassination of Baldomero, saying, the extrajudicial killings must be stopped and has called for a thorough investigation to track down the suspects.