Jiabong barangay
official shot to death by NPA death squad
By ELI C. DALUMPINES (PIA
Samar)
January 30, 2007
CATBALOGAN, Samar –
To him the closing of the windows of his sari-sari store may not be a
foreshadowing but it turned out so.
The barangay chairman
of an interior village of Jiabong town in Samar was shot dead early
evening Thursday (January 25) by four armed men in his own house, a
police report said.
According to the
report, Brgy. Chairman Vedasto Gabiana of Dogongan, Jiabong, Samar was
about to close the windows of his sari-sari store in Brgy. Calapi,
where he temporarily reside, at around 7:00 p.m. Thursday when one of
the four unidentified suspects, believed to be members of an NPA Death
Squad, fired at him.
Gabiana sustained a
gunshot wound in his forehead which resulted to his instantaneous
death. The police recovered from the scene an empty shell of cal. 9mm.
pistol.
The suspects
immediately fled towards Brgy. Barayong, Motiong town right after the
incident.
Intelligence reports
said that Gabiana was one of the barangay captains who refused to give
revolutionary tax to the communist insurgents.
He is the third
barangay official who has been killed by the NPA this year. Earlier
this month two barangay officials in Samar, one in San Jose de Buan
and one in Villareal, were reportedly liquidated by NPA Death Squads.
Late last year, a
barangay chairman of Brgy. Casapa in Jiabong was shot to death in
front of his wife while he was on his way home from his farm. He was
said to have supported the military’s anti-insurgency campaign.
