IF IT looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like one, it can’t well be a kangaroo, can it? Unless, of course, it’s a marsupial with an identity crisis.
The duck test quickly came to mind when I read about the ambush on San Fernando Mayor Lakambini Reluya last Tuesday afternoon.
The incident, which happened on the highway in Barangay Linao, Talisay City, killed her husband Ricardo, who was the barangay captain of Panadtaran and ABC president in San Fernando, and driver Allan Bayot and Ricky Monterona, the town’s local economic, investments and promotions officer.
Now, if you haven’t been following the news, Ricardo, who was his wife’s runningmate in the upcoming midterm elections, had told SunStar Cebu last week that he and his wife and three others were on the kill list of their political opponents led by mayoral candidate Ruben Feliciano.
On that list, Ricardo said, were he and his wife, Municipal Councilor Reneboy Dacalos, Magsico Barangay Captain Johnny Arriesgado and another councilor.
Dacalos and Arriesgado were killed less than one week apart on Jan. 10 and Jan. 16, respectively. With Ricardo now dead, that leaves the mayor and the unnamed councilor.
So if there were any doubts as to the veracity of Ricardo’s claims of the existence of a kill list, well, maybe we can apply the duck test.
A kill list, according to Macmillan Dictionary, is a list of people who are targets of assassination. Ricardo insisted there was one. That it had even been posted on social media. And that he and the aforementioned names were on it. So far, three had been eliminated. It would have been four had the mayor not survived.
I know it’s not abductive reasoning at its finest, heck, it may not even be abductive, but maybe Ricardo was telling the truth. He did say Feliciano warned him and his wife to “retreat or die.”
The businessman had brushed aside the allegations, saying these were all kuwentong kutsero and “wild dreams.” He said he had nothing to do with the “kill list,” and pointed to the police instead.
“He (Ricardo) should ask police (for) the results of their investigation,” Feliciano had told SunStar Cebu.
Feliciano believed Dacalos and Arriesgado were killed because of their alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade. That the two men were on the narcolist.
I don’t know if he’ll say the same of Ricardo after the latter was gunned down.
The fact remains, though, that Ricardo had accused Feliciano of posting on social media a kill list that contained their names. That of the five people on that list, three are dead and one is in the hospital.