Suspended Cortes Mayor Jasmine Balistoy will be back in the mayoralty saddle on May 7 after completing her six-month suspension. Running for vice mayor in the coming May 13 polls, Mayor Balistoy survived an alleged assassination try last Saturday. Mayor Balistoy is on her last term as mayor thus the decision to slide down to becoming the next Cortes vice mayor. She is running under the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC). With the attempt on her life, it was believed that the lady mayor is putting up a good fight against her opponent councilor Alvin Lim. Following the killing attempt, Police Inspector Fortunato Remedio filed a complaint for frustrated murder against one Enrique Boctoto alias Iking. Supporting the case for frustrated murder were the sworn statements of Mayor Balistoy and her son Councilor Junn Eckart Balistoy.

In a police report supporting the charge, it said, the young Balistoy, 25, reported to the police that at about 8:10 pm on April 13, 2013, he and his mother Mayor Balistoy, were about to ride on their Isuzu Altierra bearing plate number 698 which was parked at the family-owned Hangad Mini Gas Station in barangay Poblacion, Cortes town. He further narrated that suddenly, a motorcycle passed by and immediately fired a gun three times at them hitting the left rear tire of the vehicle. Two unidentified suspects on board the motorcycle immediately left the scene and fled in the direction of barangay Loreto of the same town. No one was hit in the attack. Subsequent investigations showed that the gun used in the attack was a 9mm caliber revolver as shown by the slugs found in the crime scene. The following day, Mayor Balistoy showed to the police station to identify the suspect in the shooting incident as Bactoto as the one who shot her vehicle. The lady mayor further identified the suspect as the bodyguard of vice mayoralty candidate Alvin Lim.