‘Gift bomb’ not terrorists’ work, say officials

STA. CRUZ, Ilocos Sur – Provincial officials have ruled out the possibility that terrorists were responsible for the "gift bomb" that killed an eight-year-old daughter of a former Pentecostal Church pastor here last Monday.

Gov. Deogracias Victor Savellano assured his provincemates that the incident was not the handiwork of terrorists, hinting of a possible "personal angle" in the incident.

"It’s not a terrorist’s deed," he said, adding though that local folk should be wary in receiving gifts this Christmas season.

Senior Superintendent Fidel Cimatu, provincial police director, made the same observation, saying if it were a terrorist’s work, the perpetrators could have unleashed the bomb in a "crowded place."

Cimatu said personal motives could be involved in the explosion which killed Lovely Caligtan and seriously injured her father Leopoldo and sister Shiela. Another sibling, Ryan, suffered burns on a leg.

He said investigators are looking into a land dispute Leopoldo had with a former landowner and bad loans he had reportedly incurred.

Earlier, Cimatu said Leopoldo could have incurred the ire of New People’s Army rebels operating in this town.

Leopoldo’s wife Elvira, however, told newsmen yesterday that her husband had resigned from the Pentecostal Church and engaged in farming when he started raising his family.

She admitted that NPA guerrillas are present in their barangay (Daligan) but that they merely pass by their house without harming anyone of them.

She added the local agrarian reform office has already resolved the ejectment case which a landowner had filed against her husband.

She and Ryan are the ones attending to Lovely’s wake. Leopoldo and Shiela are confined at the Ilocos Regional Hospital.