Aide also injured
By Ephraim Aguilar, Abigail Kwok
INQUIRER.net, Southern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 14:49:00 01/11/2009
INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines--(UPDATE 4) The governor of Masbate and one of her security escorts were slightly wounded after they were ambushed by alleged New People's Army (NPA) rebels before noon Sunday, a police official said.
Governor Elisa Kho's convoy was traveling along the national highway in Gahit village, Cataingan town on her way to Masbate City, when suspected NPA guerillas detonated two improvised bombs by the roadside as her vehicle passed, said Chief Superintendent Paterno Bangui, Bicol Region police chief.
Kho and a security escort, who could not be immediately identified, were slightly wounded by the glass shards from the shattered windshield of their vehicle, but both have been declared out of danger, Bangui told INQUIRER.net.
The motive for the attack is under investigation, Bangui said.
Masbate province in the Bicol peninsula is one of the priority areas in the campaign of government security forces to defeat the NPA, the
armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), by the end of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's term in 2010.
Police have also placed checkpoints near the boundary of Cataingan while the Samar provincial police have been alerted on the possible withdrawal of fleeing rebels to their province which is across Masbate island, said provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Theodore Sindac.
Sindac said Kho was not rushed to a hospital and has been safely housed at the family-owned Khokak beach in Cataingan town.
The Kho family is a known political dynasty in the province. Kho replaced now Representative Antonio Kho as governor while their son, Wilston, is the mayor of Cataingan and is also the youngest mayor, having been elected at 21.
Repeated calls by the Philippine Daily Inquirer to the Kho family were left unanswered.
Masbate is one of the hotbeds of communist insurgency in the Bicol region, which will be the venue for the 2009 Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises between Filipino and American troops in April.
Representative Reno Lim of Albay's 3rd district condemned the slay try, prompting authorities to hasten the investigation and pursuit operations.
Lim dismissed possible speculations that the ambush was related to the holding of the joint Filipino-American military exercises in Bicol, which was strongly opposed by the communist National Democratic Front.
Lim was one of the officials who announced the holding of Balikatan in Bicol in a press conference last week.
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