In the most recent assault against local leaders, an unidentified gunman shot and killed a provincial governor in the centre of the Philippines along with five other people.
Six suspects, according to the police, invaded the governor’s mansion in Pamplona town and started shooting while armed with rifles and wearing clothes resembling those of the military forces.
The shooting claimed the lives of five people, including Roel Degamo, the governor of the province of Negros Oriental.
“Governor Degamo did not deserve that kind of death. He was serving his constituents on a Saturday,” according to Janice Degamo, the mayor of Pamplona, in a video that was uploaded to Facebook.
In a statement released on Saturday, the police stated that it was unknown how the hospitalised victims were doing.
Degamo, 56, is the most recent victim in the lengthy history of political assassinations in the Philippines and at least the third one to have been assassinated since the local elections of last year.
The political ally’s “assassination,” as President Ferdinand Marcos called it, was condemned, and the offenders were urged to “surrender now, it will be your best option,” he said.
“My government will not rest until we have brought the perpetrators of this dastardly and heinous crime to justice,” Marcos included.
After a recount last month that removed his local challenger, who had been crowned the winner, the Supreme Court ruled that Degamo was the legitimate winner of the race for governor of Negros Oriental.
In an incident that also claimed the lives of his driver and three police guards in February, Mamintal Adiong, the governor of the southern province of Lanao del Sur, was shot and wounded.
Rommel Alameda, the vice-mayor of the northern town of Aparri, and five other passengers were assassinated in a highway ambush that same month.
