Abra mayor ambushed?

BANGUED, Abra — Controversy has greeted reports that the mayor of Tineg town, along with 19 companions, mostly municipal employees, was ambushed last Friday.

This, as residents of Barangay Tapayen, where the ambush allegedly took place, denied the incident and instead accused bodyguards of Tineg Mayor Clarence Benwaren of "raiding" their community and killing a villager.

Abra Gov. Vicente Valera himself belied that such an ambush occurred, alleging that Benwaren had fabricated the incident to justify his request for more Army troops in his municipality.

Benwaren could not be reached for comment yesterday. He was reportedly kept in an Army camp somewhere in Abra for his security and debriefing.

Reports said Benwaren’s group was passing through Barangay Tapayen when they were fired upon. A number of the mayor’s companions were said to have been wounded.

The New People’s Army, the reports said, was after the mayor. His wife Flor told radio reporters that the rebels bombed their house in this capital town with grenades last May.

Tapayen residents, however, have a different story.

In a letter, six Tapayen officials, led by chairman Alfredo Zapata, and 10 village elders said what happened was not an ambuscade, as the mayor claimed, but an alleged "raid" by his bodyguards.

A certain Lenin Benwaren, they alleged, led the group who killed one Windy Segbu and wounded Lazaro Sabado.

"That is what really happened, not that which we heard over the radio that Mayor Benwaren was ambushed," they said in the dialect.

They said a native burial rite for Zapata’s father Armando was being held when the "raid" took place. — With Artemio Dumlao