Mayor on grenade attack: I’m not accusing anyone but…

BUGALLON, Pangasinan, Philippines  â€“ Breaking his silence on last Wednesday’s grenade attack on his residence, this town’s mayor yesterday said he was “not accusing anyone” for the incident but that he has someone in mind.

Mayor Rodrigo Orduña decided to speak out amid text messages alleging that the grenade attack was just a gimmick.

“That would be the basis of the investigation, who is angry at me, why would he do this to me, what is his motive. Those are the questions that need to be answered,” he said.

“They want to provoke me into doing something wrong because they no longer spared my children,” he said. “They should spare the innocent children.”

Orduña’s brother Paterno, a retired police colonel, said, “We are worried. If those behind this still have their conscience, they should spare the innocent victims.”

He said the grenade attack has traumatized his brother’s wife, children and grandchildren.

The Orduña brothers used to close allies of Gov. Amado Espino Jr. until the mayor filed a plunder case against the governor before the Office of the Ombudsman for allegedly receiving P900 million in jueteng payola. The mayor confessed that he was an operator of the illegal numbers game.

Superintendent Noel Vallo, chief of the Explosive and Ordnance Division of the provincial police, told The STAR that it was a MK2 fragmentation grenade that was thrown at the mayor’s house based on specimens recovered there. The grenade landed at the front door, damaging the gutter wall.

 In a press conference yesterday, Alaminos City Mayor Hernani Braganza, Liberal Party gubernatorial candidate, read a statement on their “collective outrage” over the grenade attack.

“This act of violence, which endangered the family members of Mayor Orduña, has no place in a civilized society and deserves the condemnation of all peace-loving residents of Pangasinan,” according to the statement.

Braganza said LP members share the belief that the grenade attack is connected to the plunder case which Orduña filed against Espino.

For his part, Espino called for a thorough, impartial and independent probe of the incident jointly by the National Bureau of Investigation and Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.  

“I don’t want anybody to use unverified information to magnify insignificant events and create a distorted picture of the peace and order situation in the province,” he said.