PHILADELPHIA - The mayor of Philadelphia expressed shock and sorrow over the killing of a Filipino lawyer who was shot in the city over the weekend and is offering a $20,000 reward for information that will lead to the arrest of the shooter, a senior Philippine diplomat said Wednesday.John Albert Laylo and his mother were heading to the airport to board a flight early Saturday when someone in a nearby car fired several rounds into their Uber at a red light near the University of Pennsylvania, police said.
Laylo was hit in the back of the head and died Sunday in a hospital."I am sorry. It’s terrible," Philippine Consul General Elmer Cato quoted Mayor Jim Kenney as telling him in a meeting at Philadelphia City Hall in an apology for Laylo’s family and the Philippines.
The mayor told him a $20,000 reward was being offered for any information that will lead to the arrest of the gunman, he said.The victim’s mother, Leah Laylo, "told me to convey to the mayor her anguish, her anger and her demand for justice" and Kenney gave his assurance "that everything will be done to bring whoever is responsible for the death of her son to justice," Cato told The Associated Press."I also conveyed the great importance the Philippine government places on this case and the hope that authorities would do everything they can to solve the case," he said.Laylo, 35, had last worked for a private company in Manila, Cato said.
He had also served as a legislative staffer for opposition Sen. Leila de Lima from 2016 to 2018 then left to take up graduate studies.