Ex-mayor killed in shooting at Philippines university

A DOCTOR allegedly opened fire on people attending a graduation ceremony in the Philippines yesterday killing three including a former mayor.

Police caught the suspect armed with two pistols, soon after the shooting at one of the country’s most prestigious universities, located in Quezon City, near the capital, Manila.

Remus Medina, the Quezon City police chief, said the suspect had been wounded in a shootout with a campus security officer and arrested after a car chase.

Mr Medina said Rosita Furigay, former mayor of Lamitan City in Basilan province in the country’s south, had been assassinated.

She had been attending the law school graduation ceremony of her daughter, who was wounded in the attack. Ms Furigay was killed along with her aide and a university security officer, officials said.

Police suspect the gunman was a 38-year-old doctor who resented Ms Furigay “for allowing the proliferation of illegal drugs”, the Philippine News Agency reported. He is also from Basilan

‘This kind of incident has no place in our society and must be condemned to the highest level’

province, a restive region and stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, a proislamist State extremist group known for banditry and kidnapping.

Joy Belmonte, the Quezon City mayor, denounced the shootings. “This kind of incident has no place in our society and must be condemned to the highest level,” she said.