Policemen tracking down suspects in the ambush-slaying of Gen. Tinio, Nueva Ecija Mayor Ferdinand Bote claim to have intercepted two of the alleged assassins along Maharlika in Camarines Sur in Bicol Wednesday morning.
Chief Supt. Arnel Escobal, Bicol police regional director, identified the suspects as Florencio
Suarez, 48, and Robert Gumacay, 35.
For his part, Philippine National Police Chief Oscar Albayalde said one of the arrested suspects—he did not say who and nobody asked him—was the alleged gunman and police were still hunting down more suspects.
“We are looking for four to five more suspects linked to Bote’s slaying,” Albayalde said.
Meanwhile, authorities said they recovered the getaway vehicle believed used by the armed men in the killing of Trece Martires City Vice Mayor Alexander Lubigan.
Albayalde hinted that the suspects were members of a gun-for-hire syndicate, “most likely and all indications [suggest] these are gun for hire members, reason why they dashed to where they were nabbed when they sense they had been monitored.”
Escobal disclosed that Suarez and Gumacay were arrested at the PNP checkpoint along Andaya National Highway in Barangay Cabasag, Del Gallego, Camarines Sur at 9:30 am Wednesday, some 600 kilometers away from the crime scene.
He said Suarez was driving a color beige Toyota Avanza bearing a lost plate No. PGQ 134 together with Gumacay when a policemen manning a checkpoint along Andaya Highway flagged them down.
“They are among the suspects in the killing of Mayor Bote, but the report is not yet complete, pending completion of the manhunt,” Escobal said in Filipino.
Bote had just emerged from the regional office of the National Irrigation Administration in Cabanatuan City when fired upon by gunmen last July 3.
Policemen recovered a cal. 45 pistol from Suarez which was seen in plain view on the left driver seat of the Toyota Avanza.
The two suspects are undergoing interrogation in relation to their alleged participation in Bote’s killing while probers have yet to establish the circumstances, including the identity of the mastermind behind slay.
In Cavite, policemen recovered an abandoned back Toyota Hilux without license plate and conduction sticker, the vehicle reportedly used in the killing of Trece Martires Vice Mayor Alexander Lubigan.
In a police report, the said vehicle was spotted abandoned at the Mabacao-Pantihan Bridge in Barangay Tulay B, Maragondon, Cavite.
Earlier, Sr. Supt. William Segun, Cavite police provincial director, said two of the suspects inside a black Toyota Hilux fired at the side of Lubigan’s vehicle in front of the Korean-Philippine Hospital at Trece Martires town proper last July 6.