Assassins’ bullets fell P’sinan poll registrar

NATIVIDAD, Pangasinan — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) registrar here was shot dead by two motorcycle-riding men while he was on his way to his office last Tuesday afternoon.

The victim, Rodolfo Ruiz, 51, sustained four gunshot wounds — one in the back of the head, two in the chest and one in the left shoulder — from a caliber .45 pistol. He died at the Family Clinic in nearby Tayug town.

SPO4 Lito Diaz, who is handling the case, said the gunmen apparently waited for Ruiz to come out of his house and ambushed him some 200 meters away from his residence and some 500 meters from the municipal hall.

Diaz said Ruiz was riding on his motorcycle when he was slain.

Senior Superintendent Mario Sandiego, provincial police director, said he offered Ruiz a police security escort after his house was shot at three times last Nov. 9, the last day of the registration of voters for the May 10 polls.

No one was hurt during that attack which Sandiego suspected was only meant to intimidate Ruiz.

Ruiz had reportedly rejected a number of registrants for failing to show documents proving their residency here.

Sandiego said Ruiz thumbed down his offer, claiming he had no personal enemies.

With Ruiz’s killing, Sandiego has ordered that checkpoints be set up here and in the towns of Tayug and San Quintin.

He has ordered the Special Operations Group (SOG) under Superintendent Rolando Magno to assist the Natividad police in investigating the ambush-slay. He also sought the help of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the National Bureau of Investigation.

Sandiego said he believes that Ruiz’s killing was 90 percent politically motivated.

He recalled that Ruiz had intimated to him who were his suspects in the strafing of his house. He refused to give details, saying they could be the same people behind the Comelec registrar’s slaying.

Natividad Mayor Alejandrea Supnet told The STAR that the incident has caused tension in her town. She said she wants the police to conduct a thorough investigation and put Ruiz’s killers behind bars.

"He (Ruiz) was such a religious person and a man of principle," Supnet said. Ruiz was a district deputy of the Knights of Columbus.

Supnet is running for re-election under the Lakas-Christian-Muslim Democrats (CMD) party against two rivals — former mayor Rowena Bernabe, whose father, former Tayug mayor Guerrero Zaragoza, was killed last year, and Ening Fernandez.

Lawyer Temie Lambino, provincial election supervisor, said he has no recourse but to recommend that Natividad be declared an election "hot spot" or an "area of immediate concern." — With Cesar Ramirez