Arroyo congressional ally sued for Samar mayor’s murder


By Joey A. Gabieta
Visayas Bureau

Posted date: May 10, 2007


TACLOBAN CITY—The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Eastern Visayas filed on Monday a murder charge against a Samar congressman and six others for the killing of a town mayor.
The complaint, filed by NBI regional director Antonio Pagatpat, named Samar 2nd district Rep. Catalino Figueroa, Daram Vice Mayor Bartolome Figueroa, Edgar Figueroa and four unidentified men as among those involved in the assassination of Mayor Benito Astorga of Daram, Samar.

Figueroa is a close ally of President Macapagal-Arroyo and is seeking a second term.

Astorga had served his town for nine years with his wife, Lucia, running in 1998 to break the three-term limit. He was supposed to run for another term in next week’s elections.

A lone assassin, later identified to be Arthur Ponay, shot Astorga last Jan. 25 in Barangay Birawan at a village fiesta.

Ponay, said to be a grandson of Figueroa, was arrested by NBI operatives on Feb. 20 in front of a bakery in Catbalogan, Samar.

He is detained at the regional office of the NBI and was earlier charged with murder at the Samar provincial prosecutor’s office hours after he was arrested.

Reached for his comment, Representative Figueroa dismissed the charge filed against him and his co-accused.

“That is political harassment. I did not come from a family of murderers. My conscience is clear and I did not kill him or anyone,” he said in a mobile phone interview.

He, however, said he would face the murder case. “But right now, I cannot give my total focus on that made-up complaint against me as I am still busy with my campaigning,” Figueroa added.

The NBI said Figueroa met with his co-accused at the house of his grandson, Vice Mayor Bartolome Figueroa, in Bacagay, also in Daram, in the first week of November 2006.

It was at that meeting that the plot to kill Astorga was planned, the NBI said.

The congressman offered P1 million as a bounty for Astorga, said investigators.

Astorga was killed on Jan. 25, barely two months after the meeting in the vice mayor’s house.

“What makes this more appalling was that he is a congressman...,” said Pagatpat.

Figueroa is one of the congressmen who voted to kill the impeachment complaint against Ms Arroyo over charges she cheated in the 2004 elections.