Manila: A vice-mayor in Cavite province south of the capital was killed in an ambush on Saturday afternoon, bringing to three the number of elected local executives killed in Luzon in a span of one week.
Vice-mayor Alex Lubigan of the municipality of Trece Martires was travelling in his pick-up truck together with his personal driver when they were ambushed by a group of armed men in an SUV as they were travelling along the Trece Martires-Indang Road in the village of Luciano around 3:15 pm.
Radio reports quoted Calabarzon police regional director Chief Superintendent Edward Carranza, as saying that Lubigan died immediately from the wounds he sustained in the attack while the driver, who remains unidentified, was seriously wounded.
The vice-mayor’s vehicle was attacked just in front of the Korean-Philippines Friendship Hospital along the highway, he said.
“We are looking at all possible angles in the killing,” Carranza said.
The apparent assassination carried out on Lubigan closely follows similar attacks on local politicians in recent days.
Just on July 3, mayor Ferdinand Bote of General Tinio, Nueva Ecija, fell to assassins while a day before that, mayor Antonio Halili of Tanauan City, Batangas, was shot from a distance by a sniper hiding in the bushes close to the municipal hall.
Halili was killed early on July 2 while standing in attention during the Monday flag ceremony.
On July 4, a day after Bote was killed, the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP), had already issued a public statement condemning the series of killings and violence perpetrated against local executives.
The LMP is made up of elected executives such as mayors, vice-mayors and councillors.
“Our country is governed by laws and not upon the caprices of men. If some people believe that their elected officials have committed an offence, they should bring their grievances upon the courts, which has the power to determine the guilt of erring officials and impose the corresponding penalty. The rule of law mandates that man should not put the law into one’s own hands, or, he will become a criminal himself punishable according to law,” it said.
Lubigan is the 14th local executive killed since President Rodrigo Duterte assumed office in June 2016. Some of those killed were identified to have ties with drug syndicates.
Only on Thursday, interior secretary Eduardo Ano had assured that there is no reason to believe that there is a systematic elimination of government officials with drug ties.
“We see no pattern in the killing of mayors. Each case has on its own facts. They are not at all related. In fact, only a small portion are definitely drug related,” he said.
At the start of his administration on 2016, Duterte vowed to go down hard on drug syndicates and some quarters blame the president’s statements in support of the brutal drive against syndicates has emboldened killers.
Some 5,000 drug-related killings have been blamed on vigilantes and rogue officers of the law.