NPA rebs execute Mindoro mayor

CALAPAN CITY -- Two young communist guerrillas shot dead yesterday a Mindoro Oriental town mayor who had just attended Mass with his wife, police said.

Mayor Oscar Aldaba of San Teodoro town had stepped out of church when he was stopped by two men, who said they were members of the communist New People's Army (NPA).

They then grabbed Mrs. Aldaba from the embrace of the mayor and shot him at close range, local police chief Inspector Andrew Aguirre said.

"Based on my initial investigation the killing happened about 9 a.m. Two armed men believed to be between the ages of 16 and 20 suddenly held him and said they were NPA before shooting him dead," Aguirre told radio station dzBB.

Aldaba, 50, was a former Army major and intelligence officer and had been accused by the guerrillas of helping in counter-insurgency campaigns in Oriental Mindoro. He died from three gunshot wounds in the head.

Police recovered several empty shells fired from caliber .45 and 9 mm. pistols at the scene and the mayor's service firearm was missing, apparently taken by the guerrillas, Aguirre said.

He said the mayor did not have bodyguards despite earlier warnings from the communists they would harm him and the police chief because of their anti-insurgency campaign in San Teodoro town.

"He and I have been receiving threats, he is very angry at the NPA and don't want them in San Teodoro," Aguirre stressed.

Aldaba's killing was reportedly carried out as a "birthday gift" to Communist Party of the Philippine (CPP) founder Jose Ma. Sison who celebrates his birthday tomorrow. It was also meant to test the mettle of newly installed Southern Tagalog police director Chief Superintendent Lucas Managuelod.

Provincial police chief Superintendent Napoleon Cachuela gave Aguirre three days to solve the murder, as he ordered two teams from the PNP Special Action Force (SAF), based in Puerto Galera, to go after the mayor's killers.

Cachuela also personally led police reinforcement from the 409th PNP provincial mobile group, based in this city, to augment the two SAF teams and the San Teodoro police in going after the killers.

Aldaba was the second local executive to be felled by NPA guerrillas in the past week. It will be recalled that former Jaen, Nueva Ecija Mayor Felix Velarde was shot dead by suspected Marxist guerrillas last Thursday as he was on his way home from a local cockpit.

The Aldaba murder was also the second major rebel attack in San Teodoro in recent months. Last October, the guerrillas ambushed and killed the town's police chief, who they said was active in counter-insurgency operations and had "blood debts to the masses."

The NPA, military arm of the CPP, is fighting for a Marxist state in the largely impoverished Catholic country. More than 40,000 people have died in the 30-year rebellion.

The NPA has set up so-called liquidation squads in Manila and some provincial urban centers to go after allegedly abusive officials, soldiers and police, as well as drug traffickers.

The military blamed the rebel hit-squad for more than 200 killings in the late 1980s. Estimates place present NPA strength at around 6,000 to 8,000 fighters from a peak of 26,000 during the martial law regime. --