Move FM Global News

CEBU CITY, Philippines – A prominent mayor in the Philippines has been assassinated in Cebu City in a daring, daylight operation carried out by nearly a dozen heavily-armed men.

David Navarro, the Mayor of of Clarin, in Misamis Occidental, was killed and five others injured in the attack.

Navarro was heavily-guarded, was travelling in a police convoy and was wearing a bullet-proof vest, when his entourage and police escort was ambushed.

The mayor was on Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s ‘drug list’ but was reportedly fighting to clear his name, insisting he had nothing to do with drugs.

According to local media he was heading for the prosecutor’s office in Cebu city after being charged with assaulting a massage therapist. He had been arrested at the airport just before he was to board a flight to Manila.

He is the thirteenth mayor to have been assassinated in the Philippines in the past 3 years.

Police Major Eduardo Sanchez, a station chief in Cebu, was quoted by RT.com as saying the officers were caught off guard by the ambush. Police Master Sergeant Carlo Balasoto said there were at least 10 gunmen in a white van that carried out the attack.

They say police were ordered to exit their vehicles and lay down on the ground. They then dragged Navarro, who was sitting between two officers in the back seat of one of the vehicles, out and executed him.

The mayor’s sister Princess Navarro, was forced to watch the assassination after first trying to defend her brother.

“Is there any justice? If I demand for justice, will they give it?” she asked reporters afterwards. “We live in a small and remote town. We came to Cebu, which is a part of the Philippines, but it felt like we are not in the Philippines.”