A Philippine mayor on President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s list of allegedly narcotics-linked officials was shot dead in his own office on Wednesday, police said.<\/p>\n
Mariano Blanco, mayor of the southern town of Ronda, is the latest in a spate of local officials to be slain in recent months, some with and some without alleged links to the illegal drug trade.<\/p>\n
The Philippines has a violent and often deadly political culture, but watchdogs have expressed concern Duterte\u2019s narcotics crackdown may be emboldening assailants.<\/p>\n
Blanco, 59, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen after midnight in his office, the local police chief said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWitnesses said four armed persons alighted from a white van and entered the municipal hall. The mayor was there as he was sleeping in his office,\u201d Senior Inspector Jayr Palcon told AFP.<\/p>\n
It was unclear why Blanco had decided to stay in his office overnight.<\/p>\n
The mayor was pronounced dead at the hospital and the motive for the killing is under investigation.<\/p>\n
Palcon said the mayor was on Duterte\u2019s so-called narco-list of officials involved in drugs, which was confirmed by a spokesman for the Philippines\u2019 Drug Enforcement Agency.<\/p>\n
Blanco\u2019s killing comes nearly a year after the National Police Commission stripped him of control over the local police for allegedly being \u201cengaged in illegal drug trade activities,\u201d the agency said.<\/p>\n
Another recent high profile killing came in July when mayor Antonio Halili was shot by a sniper during a flag raising ceremony at the town hall in Tanauan, south of Manila.<\/p>\n
Blanco and Halili are among at least six mayors or vice mayors killed in the Philippines since May.<\/p>\n
Blanco\u2019s nephew and town vice mayor Jonah John Ungab was also shot dead by unidentified gunmen in February after attending a court hearing, police said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Philippine mayor on President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s list of allegedly narcotics-linked officials was shot dead in his own office on Wednesday, police said. Mariano Blanco, mayor of the southern town of Ronda, is the latest in a spate of local officials to be slain in recent months, some with and some without alleged links to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[315,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41246,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41244\/revisions\/41246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}