A bloodied Magdaleno Peña being wheeled into the Dr. Pablo O. Torre Memorial Hospital, also known as the Riverside Medical Center, emergency room in an ABS-CBN video grab, shouted "It's showtime!"Peña survives ambush,2 killed, 3 others injured
BY CARLA GOMEZ
Pulupandan mayor-elect Magdaleno Peña survived an ambush with slight injuries in his left arm and other parts of the body, while his driver and bodyguard were killed at Calle Montilla, Barangay Zone 4, Pulupandan, at about 4:30 p.m. yesterday.
His nephew and three others in his three-car convoy were also wounded, while some of their attackers who escaped, were also believed injured, the police said.
As he entered the Riverside Medical Center in Bacolod with blood dripping from his arm caused by glass and metal shards, Peña waved and shouted "It's showtime!"
Peña, the former lover of fitness guro Marie Roxanne "Plinky" Recto with whom he has been engaged in a lengthy legal battle for custody of their son, was on the way to his estate in Barangay Ubay when they were ambushed by heavily armed men standing in the middle of the road in Zone 4.
Killed was his driver Jose "Moril" Merced and bodyguard Ronnie "Boy" Gegavine who were in the second vehicle.
Injured were his nephew, newly-elected second councilor of Pulupandan Gerany Suatengco who was hit by a bullet in the left knee, bodyguard Diego Anciano who was hit in the back, and the driver of the third vehicle, Bongbong Maravalles, who had a slight injury on the left arm.
A source said Peña had switched cars and was riding in the lead car that was green Expedition driven by Suatengco.
Suatengco, on noticing that there were armed men on the road up ahead, sensed trouble and stepped on the gas and broke through the line of fire.
Their vehicle was peppered with bullets but they were able to escape the kill zone to reach Ubay.
The second vehicle, a black Expedition, which is the vehicle Peña usually takes, was where the ambushers concentrated their gunfire, killing Merced and Gegavine, PO3 Pedrito Lopo who was in the third vehicle, a Strada, said.
Lopo and PO3 Ariel Flores, security escorts of Peña, who were in the third vehicle, were able to return fire.
Senior Supt. Rosendo Franco, Negros Occidental police director, said six men armed with alleged M-14 and M-16 rifles fired at the Peña convoy and escaped in a light blue Revo.
Some of the ambushers were also believed injured and he has alerted all hospitals to report the presence of injured people brought in, Franco said.
Peña has been threatening to evict 3,000 Pulupandan residents he says are squatters on his family-owned property.
His opponent for mayor Samson Mondia had accused him of using the eviction threat to scare people into voting for him.
But Peña, who describes himself as "Voldemort", said he won because he was the better tactician.
On Monday Peña and his partymates took their oaths before Gov. Joseph Marañon.
Peña said he would evict 20 percent of the hard-headed squatters and transfer them to a rebel-infested area in Moises Padilla, a town about 50 kilometers away from Pulupandan.
Peña had also filed numerous charges in the past against Gen. Raymundo Jarque that led the general to seek refuge with the New People's Army. The charges were eventually dismissed.
Jarque, when contacted by the DAILY STAR, said he was surprised that Peña had been ambushed and asked how he was.*CPG
I recognized allof them, Peña says
BY CARLA GOMEZ
"I recognized all of them," Pulupandan mayor-elect Magdaleno "Magsie" Peña said of his ambushers last night.
Peña, in a telephone interview, said the armed men who got down from a light blue Revo ahead of where his convoy passed did not conceal their faces and he will name all of them.
He linked his attackers to his opponent for mayor, Samson Mondia.
However, Mondia last night denied having anything to do with the ambush saying he does not engage in such activity and would have nothing to gain from it.
He also said Peña has many other enemies.
Peña said when he saw the armed men he told his nephew, Gerany Suatengco, who was driving the green Expedition he was in to step on the gas and break out of the killing zone.
"I ducked beneath the dashboard and I felt a force envelop me as bullets and glass whizzed by," he said.
Twenty bullets hit the side of the vehicle he was riding in, he said.
He sustained injuries in the arm, head and other parts of the body from shards of glass from the shattered windshield and metal. believed to have come from the copper jackets of bullets, he said. Peña said he was not directly hit by bullets.*CPG
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