Reds vow to ‘punish’ activist doc’s attackers

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — Communist guerrillas vowed to "punish" those who ambushed the Kalinga chairman of the militant party-list group Bayan Muna and his family last Monday.

The ambush left Dr. Constancio Claver seriously wounded, with the bullets hitting his liver and kidney. His wife, Alice, was killed, while their 11-year-old daughter Cassandra was unharmed but is still in a state of shock.

"The perpetrators of the ambush on the Claver family will not go unpunished," former government engineer Simon Naogsan Sr., spokesman of the Cordillera People’s Democratic Front (CPDF), said in a statement.

"How dare they ambush a helpless family, murder a woman of their own kin, and put in danger a child’s life?" added Naog—san, believed to be the leader of the Mt. Province-based Leonardo Pacsi Command of the New People’s Army.

Mrs. Claver, also a member of Bayan Muna, died at the hospital from four gunshot wounds several hours after the ambush. Cassandra has not spoken since, apparently still in a state of shock.

A special police task force, headed by Senior Superintendent Marvin Bolabola, Cordillera chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, is probing the ambush.

Although admitting that they still have no clues, Bolabola said he expects positive developments in the next few days.

Members of the Health Alliance for Democracy staged a rally in front of the Department of Justice building in Manila the other day to condemn the attack on the Claver family. — Artemio Dumlao, Sheila Crisostomo