A FORMER mayor of an Ilocos Norte town wanted for murder was arrested by police in Laguna on Saturday.
The National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) said Sunday its Regional Special Operations Group nabbed ex-Dingras mayor Marynette Gamboa at 10:30 on September 30 inside a resort in Calamba City, following days of intelligence operations.
Gamboa’s arrest was carried out through an arrest warrant issued by Presiding Judge Felix Gabrial Salvador of Batac City Regional Trial Court Branch 17 in July 2022.
The warrant did not recommend a bail for the accused in the alleged murder of Ilocos Norte Electric Cooperative President Lorenzo Rey Ruiz, Dingras mayor-elect Jeffrey Saguid, and Sangguniang Panlalawigan Board Member Robert Castro in 2009.
In a report, NCRPO Director Brig. Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. disclosed Gamboa was first arrested in May 2019 but released two weeks after as Salvador lifted the arrest warrant issued against her as she filed a motion for reconsideration of her case.
The NCRPO report mentioned that Gamboa was identified as the alleged mastermind in the killing of Ruiz, Saguid, and Castro.
But her motion was rejected three years later in 2022, according to the NCRPO chief, and so Judge Salvador issued another warrant for her arrest.
From Laguna, Nartatez said the former mayor is placed under the custody of the NCRPO-Regional Special Operations Group.
Gamboa, tagged as the Number 2 Provincial Level Most Wanted Person of Ilocos Norte was arrested by virtue of a warrant of arrest issued on July 11, 2022, by Hon. Felix Gabrial Salvador, Presiding Judge of RTC Branch 17 Batac City, Ilocos Norte, for the Crime of Murder with no bail recommended.
