|
By Sam Mediavilla, Reporter
President Arroyo ordered Sunday
the police to fasttrack its investigation into the killing of Rep.
Vicente Rabaya Jr. of Quezon whose bullet-riddled body was found
lifeless inside a vehicle parked in Quezon City during the weekend.
The President at the same time
directed the leadership of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to
increase police visibility in areas where political violence are
expected to break out once the local campaigns heat up.
“President Arroyo wants the
killing of congressional candidate Vicente Rabaya Jr. to be resolved
as fast as the Bersamin case and as full team up of law-enforcement
agencies is already in place,” Press Secretary and Presidential
Spokesman Ignacio R. Bunye said in his weekly column “The View
From the Palace.”
Rabaya, a board member of Quezon
province in 1995 and who recently filed his candidacy to run for
congressman of Quezon under the Nationalist People’s Coalition,
was found dead inside a white Toyota Fortuner parked on Katipunan
Road in White Plains, Quezon City, on Saturday at about 12:30 a.m.
Bunye promised Rabaya’s family
that the police would continue with its “relentless manhunt for
the perpetrators” and vowed: “The government will apply the full
force of the law against all groups and individuals who are
employing threat and intimidation to undermine suffrage and free
choice.”
He, however, admitted that while
“speedy criminal justice is the best means to show that we mean
business, we must also modernize our democratic institutions and
values, cut fraud and tone down the heat of power play at all
levels.
“The President has also
directed the PNP to intensify police visibility, deploy mobile
checkpoints to interdict loose guns and muster total community
participation to bear down on electoral violence,” he added.
He stressed that this latest form
of violence to be committed during this electoral season brings to
fore the importance of reforming the country’s political culture.
“Our political stability must
be as straight and steady as our economic stability,” he stressed.
Executive Secretary Eduardo
Ermita denied insinuations Malacañang could be behind the killing,
pointing out that there is no OPA for intelligence office in Malacañang.
A Malacañang identification card
bearing the office OPA for intelligence was found inside the car
where Rabaya’s body was found.
“There’s no such thing as OPA
in intelligence, that’s a joke. Maybe [the owner of the ID] just
faked his Palace ID. Let the investigation move on,” Ermita said.
|
