Guv recommends raps
vs. Peña, cops to DILG
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. yesterday recommended to Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas the relief of several police officers in Negros Occidental, and the filing of charges against a town mayor for allegedly violating the Election Code.

The governor also asked Roxas to direct the Philippine Army, in lieu of the Philippine National Police, to assist the Commission on Elections in the conduct of the May 13 elections in Pulupandan, Escalante City, and in other election hotspots in Negros Occidental.

The governor, in a letter to Roxas, said he was making the requests to maintain peace and order in Negros Occidental, as well as ensure the conduct of honest, free and peaceful polls.

No evidence Guara is
partisan - Cruz
BY GILBERT BAYORAN

Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz, regional police director of Western Visayas, said yesterday that there is no evidence showing that Senior Supt. Celestino Guara, caretaker of the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Officer, had engaged in partisan politics.

Reelectionist Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. has called for the relief of Guara, for alleged political partisanship and for his failure to inform him of high profile incidents in Negros Occidental, citing the recent assassination of a policeman and police asset in Escalante City, and the massacre of nine civilians by communist rebels in La Castellana, in January.

1 shot dead at city
hall in Himamaylan
BY CARLA GOMEZ

A former barangay official was shot in the chest four times by a lone gunman behind the Himamaylan City Hall, about 82.9 kilometers south of Bacolod City, at about 12:30 p.m. yesterday, Mayor Agustin Ernesto Bascon said.

Killed was Edgar Coleta, former kagawad of Barangay Carabalan, Himamaylan, and a city casual employee in charge of barangay concerns, Bascon said.

Coleta had just had lunch and was within the City Hall compound when he was shot at close range, the mayor added. The gunman was believed to have two companions who acted as lookouts.