The telling tale is reflected in the gunning down of, Bucay town councilor Nito Sales in broad daylight at around 10 a.m. Friday. The victim, a former policeman, is yet the latest in the statistics of the ‘Killing Fields’ after gunmen killed a female clerk of court also in Bucay on Monday also in broad daylight.

BY ACE ALEGRE
Contributed to Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 35, October 7-13,2007

LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET (247 kms. north of Manila) – Abra province can still be aptly called as Cordillera region’s ‘killing fields’ after eight were killed only within five days in at least three towns, including Bangued, the province’s capital town.

The telling tale is reflected in the gunning down of, Bucay town councilor Nito Sales in broad daylight at around 10 a.m. Friday. The victim, a former policeman, is yet the latest in the statistics of the ‘Killing Fields’ after gunmen killed a female clerk of court also in Bucay on Monday also in broad daylight.

Abra police director Alexander Pumecha said Bucay town police are probing if the councilor’s killing has something to do with Monday’s killing of the female clerk of court.

The killing spree, which started on September 30, shocked again the perennially violence-stricken province. Two supporters of Tineg town mayor Edwin Crisologo, who was recently declared by the COMELEC as town mayor in the highly contested polls in this town, were killed in an apparent ambush in their hometown.

Within this week, at least three were also killed in Bangued.

Earlier this week, one was gunned down also in Bucay town, only a 30 minute ride from the capital town, bringing the death toll in this town to three in just a week’s time. This includes the councilor and the clerk of court.

The killings, said Ilocos Sur lady lawyer Estelita Cordero, who attends to several cases in Abra, is bone-tingling and “signals that the killings really never stopped”. It should be a concern for all, she insisted.

After the May 14 polls that saw the fall of Abra’s long-time leader Vicente Valera and his wife Ma Cita who were tagged in several politically-motivated killings including the December 2006 assassination of congressman Luis Bersamin, many including authorities expected the killings to die down.

Much enthusiasm was seen within the Cordillera police command including Bersamin’s brother, now Governor Eustaquio, of restoring the “old glory” of Abra as a peaceful province.

But their expectations came to naught. On September 3, tricycle driver George Pastores, 45, who was ferrying his 12 year old son to school was murdered by motorcycle-rising assassins in broad daylight in Bangued. A pedestrian, 44 year old Elema B. Mendoza was also hit by a stray bullet on the chin. Pastores’ 12 year old son was not hurt.

In August, as newly installed Cordillera police director, Chief Supt. Eugene Martin took the helm, he maintained Task Force Abra (now headed by Sr. Supt. Noel Manabat) “to keep the peace” there. He noted that the province remains unstable even after the elections five months ago.

Abra showed alarming incidences of crime, which accounted for almost 50 percent of the total number of killings committed in the whole Cordillera region during the first half of the year. Killings and shooting incidents are still rampant to date, police were quoted saying two months ago.(Bulatlat.com)