Negros mayoralty bet killed in ambush

A mayoralty bet in Negros Occidental was shot dead in an ambush after attending Ash Wednesday Mass in Iloilo province late in the day, a radio report said early Thursday. Radio dzBB’s Iloilo affiliate reported that Luis Mondia Jr. succumbed to gunshot wounds on the nape and different parts of the body, after two men on a motorcycle fired at him. Police are still determining the motive for the incident, even as Mondia’s relatives suspect politics was a factor in the ambush. The incident occurred at 6 p.m. Wednesday outside the Jaro Cathedral in Iloilo City, just as Mondia and his wife were coming out of the Ash Wednesday Mass. Mondia was about to board his Mazda pickup when two men on a motorcycle fired at him. He died before doctors at the Iloilo Mission Hospital could treat him. The dzBB report said Mondia, who is running for mayor of Pulupandan town against Magdaleno Peña, had gone to Iloilo to escape the political tension in the town. Mondia lost to Peña in the 2007 elections. But, his camp had been linked to an ambush that wounded Peña and killed his bodyguard shortly after the 2007 elections, the dzBB report said. - LBG, GMANews.TV