Attack on Angeles City candidate’s house a farce?

ANGELES CITY — Was it a farce?

This city’s police chief, Senior Superintendent Jimmy Restua, raised this question yesterday on the reported attack on the headquarters of Irineo Alvaro, a vice mayoral candidate of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) here, last Thursday night.

"The two bullets that hit the front window of the headquarters were fired from inside, not from outside," Restua told The STAR.

Alvaro was reported to have blamed politics for the incident. Two witnesses, who did not want to be identified, claimed they saw the bullets fired from a car whose license plate they also noted.

Restua, however, said he, along with a scene-of-the-crime operation team from Camp Olivas, inspected Alvaro’s headquarters and found that the two holes in the glass panel were apparently caused by pellets fired from an air rifle.

He said the holes were not even big enough for a caliber .22 bullet to pass through.

"There were no marks either on the venetian blinds or on the wall behind the glass pane, indicating that the rifle was fired from inside," he added.

Restua said there were three people inside Alvaro’s headquarters when the supposed attack happened.

"Yet they reported the incident only at about 1 p.m. the following day after they swept away the pieces of glass," he said.

Meanwhile, Restua said the attack on the house of Benny Villavicencio, a campaigner of NPC mayoral candidate Robin Nepomuceno, also in Barangay Pandan, last Wednesday night, was "meant to scare, not to kill."

He said 11 9-mm. slugs were found at the site.

Restua said Villavicencio, who has gone into hiding with his family, has refused to cooperate with investigators. Police security escorts, however, have been assigned to him.

Restua said he has also detailed policemen to secure major candidates in this city, regardless of their political affiliations.

"I don’t want to be accused of being partial to any candidate," he said.

Nepomuceno and Alvaro are running against incumbents Mayor Carmelo Lazatin and Vice Mayor Ricardo Zalamea, both of the Lakas-CMD (Christian-Muslim Democrats).

The Lazatins and the Nepomucenos are long-time political rivals, dominating local politics since the 1950s.

Last Feb. 22, Ponciano Palo, the city’s deputy election registrar, was gunned down in front of his house, also in Barangay Pandan.

Nepomuceno’s elder brother, Rep. Francis Nepomuceno, is seeking re-election in Pampanga’s first district against Lazatin’s daughter Janet.