AKIPRESS.COM - The mayor of Gonzaga town in Cagayan province was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen on Monday morning, moments after the flag-raising ceremonies in front of the town hall, police said.

Gonzaga town Mayor Carlito Pentecostes Jr., was gunned down by unidentified men at around 8 a.m.

Mayor Darwin Tobias of neighboring Santa Ana town said Pentecostes died of a lone gunshot wound to the head.

Citing information he received from his friends and residents of Gonzaga, Tobias said Pentecostes was about to enter the town hall after leading Monday’s flag-raising ceremonies when more than 50 armed men in military uniforms stormed the town hall grounds, with one of them shooting the mayor in the head.

“Awan ti rumamraman; ni mayor lang ti kasapulanmi ditoy (No one should intervene; we only want the mayor),” Tobias quoted one of the attackers as saying, based on witness accounts.

Deputy Director General Felipe Rojas Jr., Philippine National Police deputy chief for administration, said over Twitter that the gunmen disarmed three policemen manning the traffic and used their mobile cars to escape after incident, Inquirer.net reported.

Rojas said the Cagayan police a‎re still conducting pursuit operations against the assailants.

In October 2012, Pentecostes sued an anti-mining leader posting on Facebook an allegedly libelous account of how he supposedly harassed activists in an anti-mining demonstration in April 2011.