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A congressional bet in Quezon City was shot dead along with his driver in District 2’s Barangay Bagong Silangan on Wednesday morning.
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Crisell Beltran, the barangay’s chairwoman, was on board her Ford Everest SUV driven by Melchor Salita along Jose P. Rizal Street near gate 5 of Filinvest 2 Subdivision when four unidentified men on board two motorbikes approached them and fired at their vehicle.
Beltran was taken to the FEU Medical Center in Fairview where she was declared dead on arrival while Salita was also declared dead on arrival at the Malvar General Hospital.
Four other occupants of the van were injured.
In other developments:
• Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said Wednesday he will recommend to the Comelec en banc a dialogue with the candidates in an attempt to curb election-related violence following Beltran’s killing.
• The Comelec said Wednesday the printing of more than 60-million ballots for the May 2019 elections will start on Feb. 2, 2019. It deferred the printing on Jan. 22 because of the unresolved disqualification cases against the senatorial candidates considered as nuisance bets.
Jimenez said the Comelec will meet the deadline for the printing of the ballots on April 30, 2019, two weeks before the May 13, 2019 national and local elections.
Beltran was running as District 2’s next representative under the Partido ng Demokratiko ng Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan against incumbent Councilor Precious Hipolito-Castelo, the wife of three-term representative Winston Castelo.
Beltran was a staunch supporter of Bingbong Crisologo who is running for mayor against Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte and former lawmaker Chuck Mathay.
The Quezon City Police District created a task force to go after Beltran’s killers.
“We will look into all angles to establish the motive behind the ambush in our investigation,” Chief Supt. Joselito Esquivel Jr. said.
Esquivel and Crisologo said the killing of Beltran and her driver was an “election-related violence case.”
“We will look into all angles to determine the motive. However, we are considering if the case is politically-motivated since she was seeking a congressional seat in District 2,” Esquivel said. With Vito Barcelo
“The case is definitely politically motivated. She [Beltran] was very popular and was a very strong candidate. If you look at it, she was way ahead of the other [congressional] bets in the surveys. Lamang na lamang,” Crisologo said.
Meanwhile, the Quezon City council convened a special session to appropriate P3 million as cash reward to any person who could provide any lead to the identification and arrest of Beltran’s killers.
“As acting mayor of Quezon City, I condemn in the strongest possible terms the killing of chairwoman Criselle Beltran of Barangay Bagong Silangan earlier today [Wednesday],” Belmonte said in a statement to reporters. With Vito Barcelo
