Ecija mayor alarmed over unsolved killings

TALAVERA, Nueva Ecija , Philippines   â€“ This town’s mayor, Nerivi Santos-Martinez, has expressed alarm over the spate of killings here and asked the police to shape up and solve these crimes.

In a meeting of the municipal Peace and Order Council, Santos-Martinez said the local police led by Superintendent Reynaldo de la Cruz have yet to solve the killings of five residents last month.

“We cannot afford for Talavera to have an image that it is prone to crimes, so we have to get to the bottom of this,” she told De la Cruz.

Among the unsolved killings were those of two vendors whose bodies were found in a public cemetery on Jan. 21, the fatal shooting of a 71-year-old widower on Jan. 18, and the gun slaying of a 62-year-old barangay councilman on Jan. 5.

Santos-Martinez said it is essential for the police to solve these crimes, otherwise Talavera’s image as an investment haven will be tarnished.

She said the town is enjoying an investment boom, particularly with the passage of an investment code that offers tax holidays to prospective investors and which promises to generate jobs.

“We are offering investors 100-percent tax-free incentive on their first year of operation and 50-percent tax exemption on the second year. Our efforts at inviting them might go to waste if our crime situation is far from encouraging,” she said.

De la Cruz, who has been in his post for barely six months, told newsmen he was not surprised to get a low grade – five to six – from the mayor over the surge of killings.

“I expected to have a low rating because the killings took place one after the other,” he said.

He said crimes could not really be prevented and hinted that the killings appeared to be isolated incidents.

De la Cruz said not many crimes here are unsolved, adding that the police now have leads in the killings of the widower and barangay councilman.

He said there are other cases where the suspects have been charged in court.

Although there have been concerns on the recent killings, De la Cruz said there is no breakdown of law and order in Talavera and that the town remains generally peaceful.