Tuguegarao mayor survives gun attack

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Philippines – The mayor of this city was shot and critically wounded in front of a hotel that he owns in the downtown area Monday night, police said.

Mayor Delfin Telan Ting, 72, was talking to his two bodyguards in front of the hotel when an unidentified man shot him in the left cheek with a suspected caliber .22 pistol, with the bullet exiting through his nasal area.

Ting was rushed to the St. Paul Hospital but was airlifted to an undisclosed hospital in Metro Manila yesterday noon.

Ting’s son Larry, president of the city’s Association of Barangay Chairmen, believes that politics was behind the attack on his father.

The elder Ting’s reign as city mayor is the longest, starting when he defeated the officer-in-charge designated by the revolutionary government of then President Corazon Aquino following the EDSA Revolution in 1986.

Ting was succeeded by his son Randolph after his third and final term.

He made a political comeback as mayor in the last May elections, while his son Randolph won as congressman in the third district of Cagayan.

Sources close to Ting said the mayor has lately received death threats through his Facebook account. – With Charlie Lagasca