Sasmuan mayor asks cop chief to reveal Ejercito ambush video

A television video footage may contain key evidence in a suspected communist rebel ambush that presidential son Joel Ejercito and Sasmuan town Mayor Catalina Bagasina survived last Tuesday in Pampanga.

Bagasina has asked the town's police chief to make public the video clip as soon as possible.

"The video camera and tape depicting the incident are still in your safe custody and I urge you to exert proper care to protect these things," the newly installed local official said in a memorandum to Chief Inspector Manuel Chica.

Central Luzon police director Chief Superintendent Roberto Calinisan said some suspects have been arrested and were being questioned.

Calinisan refused to give details about the investigation, saying only that the "developments are very positive."

The camera was used by ABS-CBN correspondent Vincent Rodriguez, who was killed in the ambush, in filming Ejercito's visit to Sasmuan.

It remains unclear if Ejercito was the target.

"Rodriguez may have unwittingly recorded an award-winning documentary of an assassination attempt involving not only a mayor but the son of a President," a member of Bagasina's staff said.

Their seven-boat convoy was crossing the Pampanga River when several men with automatic rifles fired at them from the riverbank. Policemen accompanying Ejercito and Bagasina returned fire.

Bagasina believes she was the target and that the attack was politically motivated. She recently won a special election against the incumbent Fernando Baltazar.

"Jojo Ejercito could not have been the target of the ambush," she said. "His presence (in the town) was known only to a few people."

Chica thought he was the target because his boat was fired at, not the boat ahead of his bearing Ejercito and Bagasina.

Police suspect the Rebolusyonaryong Hukbo ng Bayan (RHB), a communist group that broke away from the mainstream New People's Army in 1997, was responsible.

Bagasina has written Interior Secretary Alfredo Lim and Philippine National Police chief Director General Panfilo Lacson to send additional policemen to beef up the town's police force.