CAMP BGEN OSCAR M. FLORENDO, La Union – A P150,000 reward was put up as reward money for the immediate arrest on Tuesday last week of the suspects in the gunslaying of a parish priest in Pinili, Ilocos Norte, Fr. Florante Rigonan.

The reward money was jointly put up by Ilocos Norte Gov. Michael Keon, together with Pinili town Mayor Asuncion Pagdilao and Ilocos police director Chief Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoil.

“We have a total of P150,000 reward money for anyone who can provide information that could lead to the identification and eventual arrest of the suspects,” Bataoil announced during the observance of Crime Prevention Week here on Monday.

Bataoil said five suspects wee already invited for questioning and subjected to paraffin test to determine their involvement on the crime.

All the five suspects however tested negative for gunpowder based on the result of laboratory examination as confirmed by Sr. Supt. Marvin Bolabola, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Ilocos.

“They were negative (of gun powder) but they (suspects) are not free yet because we are still in the process of determining all the pieces of evidence that may link them to the crime,” Bolabola said.

Investigators invited on Wednesday Police Officer 1 Darwin Macalma and four of his relatives, Roger, George, Lyndia and Liwliwa, all surnamed Macalma, for questioning.

Bataoil said they are pursuing personal motive, such as envy, because the suspects may have gotten envious when their relative, spouses Florencio and Elisea Macalma, both balikbayan retirees, donated U.S. 100,000 dollars (roughly P5-million) for the construction of a chapel in Barangay Balbuena, Pinili town.

Rigonan, parish priest of Isadore Parish Church, was shot by an unknown suspect at around 10:40 p.m. on Tuesday when he was about to board his Toyota Hi-Ace van after conducting prayer at the house of the Macalma couple in Barangay Puritac.