P200T reward up for info on Calbayog mayor’s slay
Tacloban City — President Benigno Aquino III’s political party is offering a P200,000 reward for information leading to the killers of Calbayog City Mayor Reynaldo Uy, which the slain mayor’s daughter said was politically motivated.
Uy, 59, a member of Mr. Aquino’s Liberal Party, was shot dead by a lone gunman inside a covered court in Hinabangan, Samar, 9:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Samar Board Member Eunice Babalcon, who was seated next to Uy, was wounded in the attack. Babalcon is now out of danger.
Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo said in a press conference on Monday that the cash reward would help encourage witnesses to come out.
“We’re finding some difficulties because we don’t have a vital witness,” said Robredo in a brief media conference prior to leaving this city.
In a speech she read to reporters, Rosa Jessica Uy-Delgado, the slain mayor’s eldest daughter, said the family believed the murder of her father was perpetrated by a “highly corrupt politician.”
She, however, refused to identify who the politician was. Her father had filed a recall petition against the children of ex-Gov. Milagros Tan, who now sits as governor and vice governor of Samar.
Their mother had been suspended for 90 days during her term as governor for the misuse of her impoverished province’s calamity fund.
Chief Supt. Arnold Revilla, police regional director, did not discount the possibility that politics was behind the murder.
Meanwhile, President Aquino is expected to visit Calbayog City today to pay his respects to Mayor Uy.
The President is expected to arrive at the Calbayog city airport in the morning and will motor his way to the city sports complex where the remains of the slain mayor lie in state.
Yesterday, Police Director General Raul Bacalzo arrived in Tacloban en route to Calbayog to assess the investigation on the Uy murder.
While the President has ordered the police to solve the crime, there was no pressure for them to solve the killing of Uy immediately, Bacalzo said in a brief interview at the Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport in Tacloban City. /INQUIRER
