Kalinga bet’s assassin charged with murder

La Trinidad, Benguet – The assassin of Kalinga province’s gubernatorial bet Rommel Diasen was charged with murder, following his failure to show up at the police headquarters last Tuesday.

Although there were surrender feelers, Cordillera police spokesman Superintendent Joseph Adnol said 18-year-old Joel Melod, a member of the Magnao-Lubuagan tribe, did not surrender as expected, even as police reached out to his relatives to convince him to surrender.

Murder charges should have been filed on Tuesday but authorities acceded to the request of tribal elders for another day pending negotiations for his surrender.

Tribal elders had also intervened, said Adnol, supposedly for the case to be tried under the traditional "bodong" (justice system) of the Cordillera tribal villages.

But since Melod did not surrender, a manhunt is now underway. Authorities had already released an artist’s sketch of Melod, described as medium-built, and is about five feet and five inches tall.

Police insisted that the brutal Black Saturday killing has nothing to do with the coming elections. Instead, Adnol said, it might have been a revenge of the killing two years ago of RTC Judge Milnar Lammawin, who is from Magnao.

Diasen, who was from Mountain Province, died from six gunshot wounds from a caliber .45 pistol. He was shot at close range by Melod while speaking in a campaign sortie in Barangay Magnao, Tabuk.

Melod’s political party, PMP, refuses to accept the revenge angle because they said the Lammawin issue had long been settled.