Malabon councilor shot dead

MANILA, Philippines - A city councilor was shot dead in front of his house in Barangay Tenejeros, Malabon City yesterday.

Malabon 2nd District Councilor Merlin “Tiger” Mañalac was pronounced dead on arrival at the MCU Hospital in Caloocan City about an hour after he was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle at 3:50 p.m.

Mañalac was the son of the late Malabon councilor and police colonel Alfonso “Boyong” Mañalac. He was running for re-election in May.

Partisano-Armadong Operatiba ng Partido Marxista-Leninista ng Pilipinas, a leftist group, claimed responsibility for the killing “in retaliation for the murder of Peter Villaseñor,” a former member of the New People’s Army, in 2010, according to a dzMM radio report.

The group had also claimed responsibility for killing a barangay captain in Manila in 2011 and the ambush try on the teenage son of Robert Esquivel, then Metropolitan Manila Development Authority sidewalk clearing operations group chief in 2009, the report said.

Malabon City Mator Antolin Oreta III offered a P200,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Mañalac’s killers.

The councilor was set to meet Oreta and other members of the Liberal Party-Pusong Malabon Team.

Sr. Supt. Severino Abad Jr., city chief of police, said they are looking for witnesses who could identify at least four suspects – two lookouts and two gunmen on board a red motorcycle.

Mañalac suffered four gunshot wounds.

Sources said the victim had been receiving death threats since last year, although he said that “it was just part of being a public servant.”

He was cautious but did not hire any bodyguard, the sources said.

Oreta ordered a thorough investigation and did not rule out the possibility that the killing was politically motivated.

The Mañalacs are well known in Malabon because their father’s life story was made into a movie starring Eddie Garcia.

The patriarch died of a heart attack in 2009.