Cabanatuan City—The Philippine National Police is looking into three possible motives in Tuesday’s assassination of Mayor Ferdinand Bote of General Tinio, Nueva Ecija, police said Wednesday.
Chief Supt. Amador Corpus, head of Police Regional Office 3, said the crime could have been prompted by politics, the mayor’s quarrying business and possible conflicts in handling government projects that have links with his construction business.
Police have heightened security measures in the town and set up additional checkpoints.
Corpus said solving Bote’s murder is now their top priority and encouraged anyone with knowledge of the crime to come forward and shed light on the killing. A special investigative task force has been formed to focus on the mayor’s murder.
Bote, 57, was shot dead in his Toyota Fortuner by still unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle, as he was departing the National Irrigation Administration compound in Cabanatuan City at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
He suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died instantly.
Investigators recovered 18 empty shells of cal .45 at the crime scene.
Corpus said investigators were still determining the exact number of suspects involved in the killing, but CCTV footage showed three suspects fleeing on a motorcycle.
In General Tinio, Vice Mayor Melvin S. Pascual of the opposition Liberal Party assumed the mayorship, the regional office of the Department of the Interior and Local Government said Wednesday.
Bote, who belonged to the administration PDP-Laban, was the second mayor killed this week, after Mayor Antonio Halili of Tanauan City, Batangas was killed Monday by a sniper.
Police said they were looking for a person of interest who was nearby at the time of the shooting.
Corpus dismissed suggestions that illegal drugs might have been involved, noting that General Tinio had no problem with narcotics.
DILG officer-in-charge Eduardo Año, meanwhile, said Bote was not in the President’s “narco-list” of politicians allegedly involved in illegal drugs. With Francisco Tuyay and Romeo Dizon