CABANATUAN CITY—Suspected hired killers are roaming Nueva Ecija, leaving at least five dead in a span of one month.

The latest incidents happened in separate places on Sunday.

In barangay Umangan,  Aliaga town, two caliber .45 bullets finished off Atanacio Ladignon, 43.

In Talavera town, one Rommel Pablo, 24, was found dead on the road at around 7:00 a.m. after reportedly sleeping in the house of his brother in law, Mario Catubig, in barangay Collado, on Saturday.

In San Antonio town, one Roberto Mendoza was also killed on that bloody Sunday.

Last month two Nueva Ecija capitol employees, Michaael Tridaño and Roy Malinawa, were killed in Santo Domingo town.

All the assailants in this killing rampage have not been identified, but Senior Supt. Napoleon Taas, Nueva Ecija police commander, believes hired guns were behind the killings.

The two victims in the Santo Domingo incident were employees of the provincial government’s Public Affairs and Monitoring Office headed by Raymund Sarmiento, who earlier filed graft charges against former governor Tomas Joson III.

Also recently, the driver of Sarmiento, Eric Barlis of San Pascual, Santo Domingo, escaped death by escaping from his motorcycle-borne attackers in his own motorcycle. Barlis reportedly zigzagged with bullets flying past him and it was only when residents in that village went out that the gunmen stopped chasing him.

Taas ruled out politics as the motive for all the killings.

“Investigators found out that there was nothing political in those incidents…only personal grudge,” he said.

Taas also dispelled the impression created by these incidents that there was a rash of killings in Nueva Ecija again.

“In fact, the present index crime rate, especially crimes against persons, is lower by 20 percent than last year,” he said.

Taas added that a total of 245 wanted men have been arrested and 42 loose guns have been seized since January.

Clark chief still upbeat on CL open skies

PREVIOUSLY reported by Executive Secretary Eduardo as a virtual goner, Executive Order (EO) 500-B, which will further liberalize the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA), is very much alive and could actually be signed by President Arroyo soon if her body language were made as basis.

CABANATUAN CITY—Suspected hired killers are roaming Nueva Ecija, leaving at least five dead in a span of one month.

The latest incidents happened in separate places on Sunday.

PRESIDENT Arroyo has chosen Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita to serve as presidential spokesman in a concurrent capacity once Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye assumes his new job as Monetary Board member on July 3.

SENATE President Manuel Villar wants the government to lay out a multiyear police-modernization program that would put premium on police visibility and provide law enforcers ready equipment.

THE Department of Education (DepEd) has launched its annual Oplan: Balik Eskwela (OBE) to ensure smooth school opening on June 10 for the 20.8 million public and private elementary and secondary students.

Floodwaters brought by Typhoon Cosme would have kept the town of Santa Barbara, Pangasinan, under water until now, destroyed more crops and brought untold suffering, had it not been for the building of breached flood-control dikes and the repair of irrigation canals during the dry months.

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday expressed confidence that it would be able to weed out multiple registrants in time for the August polls in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).