Ecija vice gov alarmed over Gapan City killings

PALAYAN CITY , Philippines  â€“ Nueva Ecija Vice Gov. Jose Gay Padiernos has expressed alarm over the spate of killings in Gapan City, his hometown, where he said a “reign of terror” prevails.

Speaking at the sidelines of last Monday’s session of the provincial board of which he is the presiding officer, Padiernos said the peace and order condition in Gapan City is now chaotic.

“It’s no joke. I thought it was just one or two killings but it seems there is now a pattern. It’s my moral obligation to find out the situation,” Padiernos told reporters.

He issued the statement after Superintendent Bernard Orig, Gapan police chief, briefed him and several board members on recent high-profile killings in the city.

Over the past two months, the Gapan police recorded four high-profile killings, including the ambush attempt on Emerson Pascual where four people, including a rookie policeman, were killed, and the gun attack on councilor Danilo de Guzman last Aug. 31.

Aside from these, the city election officer was wounded in an ambush by motorcycle-riding gunmen in Jaen town on Aug. 23. 

The incidents prompted the provincial board to summon Orig to shed light on the crime situation in Gapan.

Orig said they have identified the assailants in the four incidents and have filed the appropriate charges.

He, however, said the string of killings did not mean a general breakdown of peace and order in the city. “There is no reign of terror in Gapan, that I assure you,” he said.

He said the attack on Pascual was a simple case of “history repeating itself,” apparently referring to the raid on a cockpit owned by the Pascuals in 2006 which led to the killings of Pascual’s brothers Erickson and Ebertson.

Mayor Maricel Natividad’s father, former mayor Ernesto Natividad, and 17 others were charged for the 2006 attack.

The elder Natividad was arrested while undergoing dialysis in Metro Manila a few months before the May 2013 elections.