Mayor Resuello shot, dies
ELECTION PEACE SHATTERED
SAN CARLOS CITY—The supposedly festive celebration of the city fiesta last Saturday turned violent after Mayor Julian Resuello, who is running for vice mayor, was shot and critically wounded while shaking hands with his constituents inside a jampacked auditorium.
Resuello died at 7:00 A.M. Monday at the St. Luke’s Hospital in Quezon City, barely 33 hours after the incident which also killed one of his aides and wounded seven others.
The announcement was made by his son, Vice Mayor Julier Resuello, who in turn is running for mayor. The younger Resuello was also at the event when the shooting took place but was luckily unharmed.
The young Resuello is by law now the mayor of San Carlos City.
Resuello, who was at the bedside when his father passed away, said he was told by the physician that the bullet that hit the older Resuello caused irreparable damage to some of his internal organs.
The death of Mayor Resuello descended like a pall of gloom in San Carlos City as the people love the mayor for having succeeded in transforming a once backward city into an emerging tiger of the north.
Mayor Resuello was airlifted to St. Luke’s Hospital at 9:35 A.M. of Sunday by a chopper sent to San Carlos City by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, after being initially operated on at the Blessed Family Doctors Hospital here.
The Resuellos, the first father and son tandem to rule in the history of the city and Pangasinan, are under the administration’s Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats.
The new mayor said that with the killers of his father still on the loose, he and family are taking precautionary measures due to a report from a still unidentified source that he might be the next target of the assassins.
The young Resuello appealed to the people of San Carlos, especially their leaders and supporters, for calm and sobriety and let the law do its job to find the killers and the mastermind.
COMELEC CONTROL
Meanwhile, the placement of San Carlos under the control of the Commission on Election (Comelec) is almost certain following the arrival on Monday of Commissioner Romeo Brawner, in charge of Region I, to personally look into the situation and ascertain the city’s peace and order situation.
He was accompanied to San Carlos City by Provincial Elections Supervisor Reddy Balarbar who, as early as Sunday, sent a memorandum to the Comelec en banc, through Brawner, recommending that San Carlos be placed under Comelec control following the Resuello incident.
The Resuello’s are up against comebacking former Mayor Douglas Soriano who also ruled San Carlos City for nine years, same as the older Resuello, and his teammate Harry Cagampan.
The Resuellos are at the same time supporting Rachel Arenas, a candidate for congressman in the third district, against either Gallant Soriano, a brother of Douglas, or Generoso Tulagan Jr., a son of Rep. Generoso Tulagan, who are both native sons. Balarbar explained that the implication of a town or a city placed under Comelec control is that the Comelec, through a special task force that would be created, will take over the administrative functions of the local government unit during the election period.
But the most important thing, said Balarbar, is that all exemptions from the gun ban previously issued by the poll body to civilians would be revoked, meaning no one, except uniformed personnel of the police and military, can carry guns.
Archbishop Oscar Cruz of the Lingayen-Dagupan archdiocese, who visited Resuello while still at the Blessed Family Doctors Hospital, also appealed to the people not to resort to violence.
He vowed to spearhead a peace rally in San Carlos city to appeal to each side of the political fence to let reason prevail.
Balarbar has announced that he has issued a memorandum ordering the election officers of Dagupan and San Carlos cities to swap assignments.
Under the memorandum, Dagupan City Election Officer Remarque Ravanzo will go to San Carlos City while Atty. Vanessa Roncal will go to Dagupan City.
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