Sixth suspect in Isabela poll exec’s killing identified

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya - Authorities have identified another suspect in the recent killing of a high-ranking official of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the northern province of Isabela. The suspect, Ariston Delgado, along with five others, is being accused of taking part in the slay of Comelec supervisor and lawyer Michael Valdez. Witnesses positively identified the sixth suspect after the Cordillera police provided them with several mugshots of Delgado, according to police Supt. Vicente Valdez, head of the task force formed to go after the killers of the Comelec supervisor. Supt. Valdez said his group "will continue our follow-up operation and coordination with other police units to find out if there are still other accomplices to the crime." The 37-year-old Comelec supervisor succumbed to four gunshot wounds after his assailants attacked him inside the Countryside Hotel and Drive-in in Isabela's Tumauini town. The five other suspects are Harry Taccad, Gerry Calanday, Giovanni Mendoza, Eric Alzate, and Michael Magdangal. Mendoza, Alzate, and Magdangal are still at large, while Delgado was included as subject of the police's manhunt operation, after authorities submitted a petition to the Cabagan Regional Trial Court to have him included among those charged in the Valdez murder case. - Floro Taguinod, GMANews.TV