DIPOLOG CITY (Mindanao Examiner / May 10, 2013) – Police forces raided the house of southern Philippine town mayor and allegedly seized assorted weapons and counterfeit money and sample ballots, officials said.
Officials said Mayor Mariano Candelaria, Jr, of Gutalac town, was not at home when the raiders, led by Supt. Reynaldo Maclang, commander of the Public Safety Company, and the local police chief Insp. Manolo Echem, arrived together with a village official.
Maclang’s group was able to get a warrant from Judge Cheery Joy Ageas to search the mayor’s house and recovered two .45-caliber pistols, a hand grenade, a .357-caliber revolver, a 40mm rifle grenade, two homemade shotguns, a marble gun, two hand guns and munitions.
Police also seized 20 pieces of sample ballots stapled with P500, a bundle of sample ballots for local NP candidates and 32 pieces of fake ten peso bills.
There was no immediate statement from Candelaria, who is a leader of the political party called Alliance for Peace and Progress of former Zamboanga del Norte congressman Romeo Jalosjos, Sr.
Last month, a village chieftain in the town Marlon Manisig, 51, who is a supporter of the mayor, was wounded in an ambush staged by masked gunmen.
Manisig was driving his motorcycle when two gunmen also in a motorcycle shot him. The village leader just came from the mayor’s political rally when he was attacked.
The spate of gun attacks and unabated killings in Zamboanga del Norte have alarmed local government leaders and were calling for the deployment of troops in the province to protect the public from the deteriorating peace and order situation in the area. (Mindanao Examiner)
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