Two unknown gunmen armed with a 9 mm pistol and another a 45 cal. firearm waylaid Board Member Josil Trabajo while on board a government-issued Isuzu Crosswind Wednesday evening but fortunately for the lawmaker, his live-in partner and their child as the three car occupants, escaped unhurt.
The kind of firearms used in the ambush was determined by the spent shells found in the crime scene.
Trabajo and his common law wife identified as Daisy Comahig, of legal age, and now residing along Banat-i Road in Dampas district, this city, just came in from the Bohol Tropics where they presumably had dinner.
When the Trabajo family was near their rented apartment in Dampas, two men came from behind and peppered their vehicle with bullets.
At least three bullets holes were found in the door panel and rear window of the car but failed to hit its mark which apparently was the board member.
When Trabajo sensed that he was being targeted for assassination, he immediately ordered his driver to speed off. This was the time when the gunmen shot at the fast moving vehicle missing its target.
At least two angles were being looked into by police investigators. Police are looking into the possibility that it was a case of mistaken identity or possibly the handiwork of hired guns on orders of a principal who must have something to do with the public official's romantic relations.
Trabajo has long been separated with his wife who is now in the United States.
When interviewed right after the incident, Trabajo claimed that his companion was his wife only to correct himself that the other occupant in the car was his live-in-partner.
In a report from Police Supt. Julius Cesar Gornez to Provincial Director Eduardo Ingking of the Bohol Philippine National Police, the city police chief reported that in a subsequent investigation, he was informed that the board member's legal wife in the US threatened him with harm. The death threat was confirmed no less by Trabajo.
In zeroing in on the possible motives of attempted murder, Supt. Gornez likewise dismissed speculations that it was politically motivated.
According to Trabajo, he cannot remember that there was an existing threat on his life during his entire political career.
However, only lately, the board member from Carmen was in the news after he and eight others including former mayor Pedro Budiongan,Jr. were acquitted of an anti-graft case that spanned all of eight years before the Sandiganbayan found them innocent of graft charges. Trabajo was haled to court in his capacity as former vice mayor of Carmen. As a result of the criminal case, the former Carmen vice mayor was suspended for 90 days.
He just finished serving his suspension when the acquittal came.