Friday shocker
TACLOBAN CITY- A former vice mayor in Samar and two members of government forces assigned in Eastern Samar were killed in separate gruesome incidents on Friday (Oct. 7).
In Calbiga, its former vice mayor, Miguel Abaigar,54, was shot to death while he was riding on his mountain bike by a lone assailant at Barangay Timbangan, also in the said town, at about 6:15 am.
Meanwhile, a detachment of soldiers belonging to the 52nd Infantry Battalion in Jipapad town, Eastern Samar, was attacked by an armed group suspected to be members of the communist armed group, the New People’s Army (NPA) at about 1:30 am.
This gun attack resulted in the death of SSg John Claire Flores and PFC Edupancho Siscar.
Sgt. Allan Talania and PFC Loumark Mengote were wounded while a 10-year old girl also sustained injury due to the incident in Barangay Dorillo, about eight kms away from the town proper.
The soldiers belong to the mobile community support sustainment team of the 52nd Infantry Battalion which is based in Oras, also in Eastern Samar.
Pursuit operations were made immediately against the rebels who fled after they attacked the Army base.
Meantime, the former vice mayor of Calbiga, Abaigar, sustained three bullet wounds from Caliber 45 at his back which resulted in his immediate death, town police chief Major Ruel Cantillas in a phone interview.
Abaigar served as vice mayor of Calbiga for a single term that ended in 2019.
During the May 9, 2022 elections, he ran unsuccessfully as a town councilor, a post he held for nine years that ended on 2016.
Cantillas said that the slain town official was gunned down by the suspect while he was moving along Barangay Timbangan of Calbiga on his mountain bike at around 6:15 am.
“He was shot by the lone assailant, hitting him at his back which resulted in his instant death,” the police chief said in a phone interview.
Immediately, the Calbiga police alerted the nearby police stations which resulted in the arrest of the lone suspect identified as Allan Malagueno,43 and a resident of Catbalogan City, also in Samar.
Malagueno was arrested during an entrapment operation at sitio Valera of Brgy. Bato, Paranas wherein police seized from him a Caliber 45.
The suspect is now detained at the Calbiga police station.
The police, however, have yet to know what was the motive of Malagueno for killing the former town official.
JOEY A. GABIETA
