Compostela mayor killed in ambush

DAVAO CITY, Philippines - – The mayor of Laak town in Compostela Valley, who was earlier tagged by communist rebels as an alleged illegal logger, was killed in an ambush in Ascuncion, Davao del Norte yesterday, police said.

Two of the gunmen were also killed by the police escorts of Mayor Reynaldo Navarro in the exchange of gunfire along the national highway in Kilometer 12, Purok 9 in Asuncion town. The slain assailants remained unidentified.

Two of Navarro’s police escorts, PO1 Rey Leones and PO3 Glen Ochoco, and his driver, a certain Timilito Pacanot, were wounded, police said.

Navarro was on his way to Tagum City in Davao del Norte when six men on two motorcycles fired at his convoy upon reaching Purok 9.

Compostela Valley Gov. Arthur Uy condemned the ambush, saying Navarro was a big loss to his municipality.

“I already ordered the local police unit to pursue the perpetrators, to arrest them,” he said.

The Ascuncion police res-ponded to the scene with the Army’s 60th Infantry Battalion conducting pursuit operations against the gunmen.

Authorities were still investigating the possible motive behind the killing.

Police investigators, however, noted that five days before the killing, the New People’s Army (NPA) tagged Navarro as one of the “Big Four” illegal logging lords in the region.

“Raw footage taken by comrades showed rampant logging in several interior roads in Barangay Ampawid and Barangay Andap – proof that actual logging is taking place in Laak town,” Aris Francisco, spokesman of the NPA’s Compostela Valley-North Davao-South Agusan Sub-Regional Command, said in a statement on May 23.

“Navarro attempted to absolve himself by saying that Laak was merely a transit point of trucks coming from the boundary of Agusan del Sur, site of logging operations,” Francisco added.

Francisco attached a copy of video footage showing supposed illegal logging activities in Laak, to his statement. – With Cecille Suerte Felipe