PNP: Espinosa killers are guns-for-hire

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Leandro Mendoza identified yesterday as "guns-for-hire" the killers of Masbate City Mayor Moises Espinosa Jr.

However, Mendoza refused to name them but told The STAR that the assassins could have been recruited in Central Luzon or Batangas and taken to Masbate.

"They (hired killers) abound in Nueva Ecija and Batangas," he said.

Mendoza said politics could be the reason why Espinosa was killed, saying that the Espinosa family has been at odds with other political clans in Masbate.

"We have positive identification of the suspects through information given us by witnesses," he said.

In Masbate City, police said four men and a woman shot and killed Mayor Espinosa early last Friday morning and then fled the crime scene in the coastal barangay of Bantigue aboard a motorized banca.

Quoting witnesses, Superintendent Antonio Enteria, the new Masbate police director, said the five suspects appeared to be in their late 40s.

Enteria said an autopsy showed Espinosa sustained gunshot wounds in different parts of the body from an Armalite rifle, and .45 and 9 mm handguns.

Enteria said police have recovered the getaway banca at a beach in Bantigue, where Espinosa was attending a dance as part of the town fiesta when he was shot.

Police investigators said the killers were perched on a concrete fence surrounding the dance hall, where Espinosa was dancing with an unidentified woman, when they shot him without letup from different directions.

The four gunmen and the woman had waited for Espinosa, and saw their chance when he stopped dancing and escorted his partner to her seat, investigators added.

Espinosa died at about 3 a.m. Friday or three hours after the shooting while undergoing treatment at the Masbate Comprehensive Hospital.

Three other people died after being hit by stray bullets. They were Genneril Guanan, 14, a student of Masbate National High School; Fidela Marcos, 60; and Henry Regalado, 50, all of Barangay Bantigue.

Wounded were Josefa Cinco, 62; Felipina Manguia, 63; Raul Gonzalez, 54; and Honorato Buig, 56.

In Metro Manila, Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina asked the people of Masbate yesterday to wait for the results of the police investigation into the killing of Espinosa.

"I personally appeal to all peace-loving peoples of Masbate to remain calm," he said. — Jaime Laude, Celso Amo and Perseus Echeminada