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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Puerto Galera mayor was not ambushed – local PNP

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PUERTO GALERA, Oriental Mindoro—The Philippine National Police here disputed claims of the municipal mayor that he was ambushed by gunmen hired by a political rival on the eve of the 45-day election campaign for local candidates.

Puerto Galera Police Chief Marlon C. Cabatana told local newsmen that “no ambush took place” as alleged by Mayor Hubbert Christopher A. Dolor.

Dolor directly tagged Chairman Rockey D. Ilagan, of Barangay Sabang, as the alleged “funder and mastermind” of a failed ambush against him at 9 p.m.on Thursday.

Dolor said he was on board one of his two-vehicle convoy, two black Nissan SUVs, when they were fired upon by gunmen. 

Two shots were fired from a small arm, probably a caliber .45 pistol, from somewhere in Barangay Palangan. “I did not see the gunmen because the night was dark,” the mayor said in a press conference.

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The mayor’s convoy was negotiating a curve in sitio Kabilang Gulod, in Barangay Palangan, on its way to the town proper when a staccato of shots from a small firearm were heard. The mayor came from Barangay Sabang after attending a political meeting there. 

Chief Inspector Cabatana, however, said “no volume of fire, empty shells, and witness were present to warrant it as an ambush. More importantly, no vehicle nor person inside the two vehicles of the mayor’s convoy was either hit, wounded or killed in the alleged ambush.”

The police official added that neither of the two Nissan Patrols showed damage nor a dent on its body. “We’re still in the process of investigating that shooting incident.”

P/Supt. Imelda Tolentino, PNP regional public information officer, said yesterday the Oriental Mindoro provincial police office has not submitted yet an investigation or a progress report to the office of Regional Police Director Ramon Apolinario. 

Provincial Police Director Florendo Quibuyen created a special investigation task group to look into the veracity of the alleged ambush incident last Thursday.

Chairman Ilagan said he was surprised to learn that Mayor Dolor so quickly named him as the alleged “funder and mastermind without waiting for the conclusive official result of police investigators.”

“By jumping the gun on the police, it only goes to show that Mayor Dolor knew everything about that concocted ambush operation. I can say that he stage-managed that ambush that never was. He was the producer, the director, the script writer, and the main actor of that failed political teleserve,” the incensed Ilagan said.

Dolor and Ilagan are staunch political rivals in this coming May 9 election. Mayor Dolor fielded his 70-year old mother, Mrs. Estrellita A. Dolor, a retired public school teacher, against Chairman Ilagan, of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), in the mayoral race.

The Puerto Galera mayoral race is a triangular fight among Mrs. Dolor, who is running under the administration Liberal Party, and her younger brother, former Mayor Aristeo Atienza, and Chairman Ilagan.

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