BINMALEY – One of the four mayors in Pangasinan supposedly marked for liquidation by hired guns came out in the open and admitted that he is really under threat and is not taking it lightly.

Mayor Simplicio Rosario, who is seeking a second term of office as mayor of Binmaley, said he learned that his life is under threat just two days after San Carlos City Mayor Julian Resuello was killed.

Rosario told newsmen he learned this from friends, some of them from the military, who claimed that they heard from the grapevine he will be the next target of the hired killers after Resuello. Read more

CAMP OSCAR FLORENDO, La Union– The police will not sit idly by on reports that four more mayors in Pangasinan have been marked for liquidation by supposed hired killers on or before the May 14 elections.

The four are now reportedly the next targets of the guns-for-hire after eliminating their first target, Mayor Julian Resuello of San Carlos City, last April 30, all for a supposed contract price of P7 million. Read more

By DANNY O. SAGUN

MORE than a million Pangasinense voters are expected to troop to polling places tomorrow to elect their new set of officials.

There are now a total 1,361,167 registered voters in Pangasinan distributed in 9,651 precincts in 1,364 barangays, considered one the biggest voting populations in the country, records at the provincial office of the Commission on Elections showed.

The third congressional district composed of five towns and the city of San Carlos has the biggest number of voters with 289,106, followed by the fifth district – composed of eight towns and the city of Urdaneta – with 232,711 voters. Read more

STA. BARBARA – On the eve of what many of his townmates foresee as a landslide win against the incumbent ruling family, mayoralty candidate Reynaldo Velasco made a final appeal to Sta. Barbara voters to “restore a sense of decency, sense of self-respect, for change and for reforms in an open letter sent out to them.

Velasco decried the depth the town has gone in electing the mistress of his opponent in the last election which indicated, he said, how low the moral values of the electorate had gone. He further noted how his opponent has shamed his office by holding municipal council meetings in his cockpit during his incumbency. Read more

CAMP OSCAR FLORENDO, La Union – The manhunt for one of the suspected gunmen involved in the slaying of Mayor Julian Resuello of San Carlos City last April 30 was expanded to Metro Manila.

Police Regional Director, Chief Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoil ordered Task Force Resuello headed by Superintendent Manuel Velasco to expand the manhunt for Cesar de Guzman, alias “Cabeza” to Metro Manila where he is now possibly in hiding.

He said elements of Task Force Resuello will track down Mendoza anywhere he will go, even if the manhunt for the suspect takes them to the Visayas and Mindanao. Read more

HOUSE Speaker Jose de Venecia’s re-election as congressman for Pangasinan’s fourth district got another big boost with the support thrown at his candidacy by the influential Iglesia Ni Cristo.

“This is very good news,” de Venecia said, upon being informed that he got the nod of the INC.

He said this will greatly help him in his candidacy as he thanked the INC leadership and its flock for their trust and confidence in him. Read more

VIGAN CITY – An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.4 shook the province of Ilocos Sur at 2:27 early Monday morning.

Renato U. Solidum Jr, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), said that the earthquake’s epicenter was located 46 kilometers southwest of Vigan City, Ilocos Sur.

The quake was felt at intensity 4 in Vigan City, Sto. Domingo, Ilocos Sur and Bangued, Abra; intensity 3 in Baguio City; Laoag City and Sinait; and intensity 2 in Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte. Read more

VICE PRESIDENT and Housing Secretary Noli de Castro and House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. agreed to push after the election a nationwide mass housing program that will build one million houses for the first year alone.

They firmed up the agreement when they met in Manila on Tuesday during which De Castro also took the opportunity to declare his support for the reelection bid of de Venecia as congressman of the fourth district of Pangasinan. Read more

AN improvised bomb was exploded, followed by successive gunfires, at about 10 p.m. Sunday near the premises of the reelectionist mayor of Sual town.

No one was hurt in the explosion and gunfires as Mayor John Arcinue and his supporters were eating late supper inside his house after coming from their campaign sorties when the incident happened.

The explosion occurred at the gate and fence of Arcinue’s residence, along the national highway. Read more

LINGAYEN – The police will investigate the report that public school teachers in Bugallon and possibly in other towns of Pangasinan were asked to participate in a supposed “dagdag-bawas” (vote-shaving) operations come May 14 elections.

A report received by the police stated that teachers were offered by a barangay captain from P50,000 to P100,000 each to undertake the vote-shaving operations for certain local candidates and threatened or intimated if they refuse. Read more