Task force to go after killers of former Pampanga mayor

CAMP OLIVAS, Pampanga – Police have formed a special task force to go after the killers of former Apalit mayor Tirso Lacanilao who was gunned down by four men riding tandem on two motorcycles in Calumpit, Bulacan last Thursday afternoon. Chief Superintendent Errol Pan, Region 3 police director, said Task Force Tirso is headed by Senior Superintendent Silvestre Primero, chief of the Regional Investigation and Detection Management Division.

Pan said the task force will be composed of members of the Regional Intelligence Division, Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit-3, Regional Intelligence Operations, Regional Police Legal Service, and Crime Laboratory Office-3, and the Pampanga and Bulacan police directors.

The task force convened yesterday at Primero’s office to tackle possible motives behind Lacanilao’s ambush-slay, Pan said.

Primero told The STAR that they are considering four angles in the killing – vendetta, business rivalry, politics, and love triangle.

“As of now we are investigating the love triangle angle because at the time he was killed, Lacanilao was about to meet a woman at a gas station in Barangay Poblacion, Calumpit town,” Primero said.

Pan has ordered the task force to solve the case as soon as possible.

Lacanilao, a former three-term mayor of Apalit town, was waylaid in front of a gas station along the Calumpit-Hagonoy Road in Barangay Poblacion, Calumpit town at around 2:20 p.m. Thursday.

Lacanilao, who was seated at the driver’s seat, was shot several times with caliber .9-mm and .45 pistols.

Senior Superintendent Allen Bantolo, Bulacan police director, said the former mayor’s Mitsubishi Gallant was riddled with bullets.

Bantolo said Lacanilao’s close-in security and driver, Armando del Moral, was unharmed because he was on the backseat.

Del Moral rushed Lacanilao to the Sta. Cruz Hospital in Calumpit where he was declared dead on arrival by attending doctors.