LP CONDEMNS GRENADE ATTACK ON WHISTLEBLOWER’S HOUSE

 

            The Liberal Party in Pangasinan today condemned the pre-dawn grenade attack on the house of Bugallon Mayor Rodrigo Orduna, the whisteblower who filed plunder charges against Gov. Amado Espino, Jr. for alleged involvement in jueteng operations.

            The Liberal Party, at the same time, called on law enforcement agencies in Pangasinan to intensify operations against private armed groups and other lawless elements who may be employed by politicians to sow terror on rival candidates.

            “We, in the Liberal Party, condemn the grenade attack on the house of Mayor Ric Orduna. We are asking the authorities to investigate this deplorable act and arrest whoever is behind the attack,” said former Vice Gov. Oscar Lambino, LP spokesman and vice-provincial chair.

            Initial police reports showed that an unidentified person hurled the grenade on Orduna’s compound on Bugayong street in Barangay Poblacion around 1:30 a.m. today.  No one was reported injured.

            Orduna is serving his last term as mayor, and is now running for vice mayor of Bugallon. He has joined the Liberal Party after severing his ties with Gov. Espino, whose son Jumel is now running for mayor of Bugallon under the Nationalist People’s Coalition.

            Orduna hogged the headlines last December after he filed plunder charges at the Office of the Ombudsman against Gov. Espino for allegedly pocketing more than P900 million from proceeds of jueteng operations in Pangasinan.

            Orduna, a former trusted political lieutenant of Espino, said the governor accumulated the ill-gotten wealth from jueteng operations since the time Espino was police director of Pangasinan in 1988.

            His statements at the Ombudsman were corroborated by Fernando Alimagno, alias Boy Bata, who confessed that he was one of the biggest jueteng operators in Pangasinan. Alimagno is now running for mayor of Candelaria, Quezon, under PDP-Laban.

            Alaminos City Mayor Hernani Braganza, the Liberal Party’s gubernatorial candidate for Pangasinan, called on the police to beef up the security of Orduna and increase police visibility in Bugallon and other election hotspots in Pangasinan.

            “We acknowledge the gains made by the Pangasinan police in curbing crime incidents, but our law enforcers should be on the look-out for lawless elements out to sabotage preparations for the May elections,” Braganza said.

            “The attack on Mayor Orduna deals a serious blow on efforts to ensure safe and fair elections in Pangasinan. Our law enforcement agencies should conduct more checkpoints and increase police visibility to prevent the outbreak of election violence,” he said.

“We also call on the authorities to intensify the crackdown on private armed groups in Pangasinan to ensure that lawless elements would not be used by politicians to terrorize

their rivals,” the LP gubernatorial bet added.

            Braganza said police investigators should also look into the possibility that the grenade attack on Orduna may be connected with the plunder charges that the mayor filed against Gov. Espino.

            “The investigators should explore all possible motives for the attack. Whoever is behind this insidious act is serious in silencing Mayor Orduna,” he pointed out.

            “But we will not let this incident cow us into submission. The Liberal Party stands side by side with Mayor Orduna in exposing the problems plaguing Pangasinan, and we will fight to the end so that truth and justice may prevail,” Braganza stressed.