NBI steps into Leyte activist’s killing

TACLOBAN CITY – The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has stepped into the investigation into Tuesday’s gunslaying of a leader of a local vendors’ group affiliated with the militant party-list group Bayan Muna.

Police said Charlie Solayao, 50, vice president of the Katipunan han mga Gudti nga Magtirinda (KAGUMA), was gunned down in front of the parking lot of a bus company in Barangay Naga-Naga in the city’s northern district.

Solayao died at the Divine Word Hospital due to several gunshot wounds.

Reynaldo Esmeralda, NBI deputy director for regional operations, has directed Antonio Patapat, the bureau’s Eastern Visayas director, to probe the killing which happened on the second day of a Supreme Court-sponsored summit on killings of activists and journalists.

Police said Solayao and his wife, Marina, were waiting for a ride at about 1:50 a.m. for Sagkahan district where they would get fish to sell when two men clad in black satin jackets and riding in tandem on an unlicensed motorcycle approached them.

The back rider, who was wearing a ski mask, alighted, shot Solayao five times and then fled.

Police found five empty shells and two slugs from a caliber .45 pistol at the crime scene.

Superintendent Cleve Taboso, city police chief, said they have put up checkpoints around the city to catch Solayao’s killers, although he admitted that probers still had no clues who they might be.

Flor Acbo, regional Bayan spokesman, condemned the killing. “We are not suspecting anyone but we feel this is again part of the state’s operation against groups like us,” he said. – Evelyn Macairan, Miriam Garcia Desacada