Love triangle eyed in former mayor’s killing

Love triangle, not politics, surfaced yesterday as the possible motive behind the killing of former Calumpit, Bulacan mayor Ramon Pagdanganan last Sunday.

This, after probers of Task Force Pagdanganan were able to obtain a sworn affidavit from 29-year-old Celeste Fajardo, who was with Pagdanganan when he was gunned down.

In her affidavit, Fajardo said the slain former mayor, who she claimed was courting her, figured in a brawl with another suitor of hers last December.

In that confrontation, she said Pagdanganan allegedly repeatedly struck her suitor and his driver with the butt of an Armalite rifle.

The fight ended with Fajardo’s suitor, said to be a businessman and a government agent based in Manila, allegedly warning Pagdanganan that he would get back at him soon, she related.

And true to his promise, the businessman returned to Fajardo’s place along with six fully armed men last January and fired shots into the air when they could not locate Pagdanganan, she added.

Fajardo recounted in her affidavit that she was beside the former mayor when two men shot him at close range during a fiesta celebration last Sunday.

Several witnesses told probers that Pagdanganan and Fajardo were holding hands when he was shot while singing the song  “Feelings” on the videoke.

Camp Crame insiders said Task Force Pagdanganan is now focusing on Fajardo’s statement although it is not discounting other angles.

“We are not ruling any angles here. But if politics was indeed the motive behind the killing, it could have happened a long time ago,” said a veteran police investigator.

Fajardo claimed that Pagdanganan had received numerous death threats.

Senior Superintendent Allen Bantolo, acting Bulacan police director, said they are still waiting for the results of the ballistic tests on two handguns seized from two robbery suspects killed in a shootout with lawmen in Bocaue town Wednesday night.

Witnesses to Pagdanganan’s killing reportedly positively identified the two as those who gunned down Pagdanganan.

Bantolo said police forensic experts are matching the empty shells and slugs recovered from the crime scene to the caliber .357 and .22 handguns seized from the two robbery suspects – identified as Jerry Velasco and a certain Josel – to determine if they were indeed involved in the killing.

“We are still waiting for the results of the forensic examination before we can make any conclusion,” Bantolo said.

Meanwhile, Bantolo said they were just doing their job, as he downplayed the allegation of Pagdanganan’s elder brother, former Bulacan governor Roberto Pagdanganan, that police were engaged in a cover-up.

“Tuloy lang ang trabaho namin dahil wala namang nag-uutos sa taas na tumigil kami (Our job just continues since no higher-up is ordering us to stop),” he said.

The former governor claimed that a female police officer and a barangay official could possibly be involved in his brother’s slay.  – With Dino Balabo and Ric Sapnu