IRIGA CITY – A Barangay kagawad who was walking to her home in barangay San Vicente Norte in this city was shot dead in the evening of Wednesday (Dec. 5), the Iriga City Police station reported on Thursday morning (Dec.6).
The Iriga City Police identified the fatality as barangay kagawad Marilyn Padua Andalis who died from a lone gun-shot wound and was declared dead on arrival at the Lourdes Hospital in this city.
The Camarines Sur police provincial office also reported that a barangay captain in remote San Pablo, Del Gallego town, identified as Angel Mendoza, 67 years old, was also critically wounded in the armpit when armed men peppered his residence with gun fires shortly before midnight of Wednesday (Dec.5).
Mendoza was admitted for treatment at the Bicol Medical Center in Naga City together with his wife, Helen Mendoza, who sustained gunshot wounds in her foot and back, and in-law relatives, Shirlyn Magpantay and Nomerlito Decaros, who both sustained bullet wounds in the arms.
The shooting incident occurred after Mendoza’s celebration of his wedding anniversary at his residence.
A relative of the barangay official, a certain Noli, told the police that unidentified men were calling Mendoza to come out of the house. When the barangay captain refused to get out, the suspects fired their guns into the windows of his house.
A rising frequency of attacks on local officials have occurred in Camarines Sur since November this year, starting with the still unsolved killing of Lupi Mayor Raul Matamorosa and the attempted murder of a barangay captain in Tigaon town.
Tigaon town Mayor Arnulf-Bryan Fuentebella and Minalabac Mayor Gil Basmayor, both members of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), have sought the help of the police and the intervention of COMELEC for a thorough investigation of the incidents to determine if the recent attacks on government officials were politically motivated. (SONNY SALES).