Bulacan mayor, 2 guards die in ambush

CAMP OLIVAS, Pampanga — A town mayor of Bulacan, his driver and a police escort were ambushed and killed by unidentified men in Barangay Banban, Angat, Bulacan, at 2 p.m. yesterday.

Sketchy reports reading the office of Chief Supt. Roberto Calinisan, Central Luzon police director, said that Mayor Esteban Paulino of Doña Remedios Trinidad town, his driver who was unidentified, and PO1 Teofilo Abellaloza were traveling in a van from San Ildefonso to Doña Remedios through the neighboring town of Angat when unidentified men in a minibus fired at them, killing all of them.

Mayor Paulino was a second cousin of former Bulacan Gov. Roberto "Obet" Pagdanganan and a first cousin of the latter’s chief security officer, Robert Paulino.

It was learned that one of Mayor Paulino’s bodyguards was earlier linked to the ambush-slaying of San Ildefonso Mayor Honorato Galvez last year. Paulino resided in San Ildefonso

Senior Superintendent Emiliano Sarmiento, Bulacan provincial police director, said that Barangay Banban is a mountainous area and is a haven of communist guerrillas. However, police still have to determine the suspects, or the motive for the ambush. — Ric Sapnu, Jaime Laude