Palace, Roxas slam ambush;
Spare civilians, guv appeals
BY CARLA GOMEZ

"We will come after you."

This was the warning yesterday of Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel Roxas II to those who staged the ambush that left a policeman and eight civilians dead, and 12 injured in La Castellana town 3:45 a.m. Sunday.

Roxas and Malacañang condemned the ambush, which they called a heinous crime on innocent civilians.

Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda told the DAILY STAR Malacañang was informed by the Department of National Defense and the Philippine National police about the ambush.

‘Ambushers may
not be local rebels’
BY GILBERT BAYORAN

The police are looking into the possibility that the suspects in what they call the “barbaric attack” Sunday in La Castellana, Negros Occidental, that claimed the lives of nine, and injured 12 others, may not be “local rebels” but those from other areas of the country.

Senior Supt. Celestino Guara, caretaker of the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office, yesterday said the “local boys” cannot afford to do it, as they have families and relatives in the area.

If they are not NPA, then who? Guara asked..

Virginia Ordoñez, 50, threw her body over her husband to try to save him and was killed instead.

Avelino Ordoñez, 48, a volunteer Barangay Peacekeeping Action Team member, yesterday said his wife thought the gunmen who staged the ambush Sunday in La Castellana, would spare civilians but she was wrong.

She was among the nine killed when ambushers stopped the truck they were on in Barangay Puso, La Castellana, with gunfire.