Just a few days before the mid-term Philippine election on
May 13, 2013, the convoy of Mayor Ruth de Lara Guingona was ambushed in the
evening of April 20, 2013 by about 50 communist rebels. The incident happened
after the mayor had gone to the village of Alatagan to crown the winner of the
fiesta’s local beauty pageant.
Mayor Guingona belongs to the prominent de Lara family whose
patriarch Vicente de Lara was a former congressman and governor of Misamis
Oriental. The park at the provincial capitol was named after him.
On the convoy’s way home, the insurgents tried to stop the
first vehicle by setting up a bamboo roadblock. Sensing danger, the driver
managed to break through the armed men by ignoring them and by speeding up the
vehicle. However, the vehicle where the mayor was on was impeded by the road
block. That vehicle was fired upon with
rifles and grenade launcher. The communists however were not able to get close
to the overturned vehicle because the police escorts exchanged fires with them.
During the firefight the driver and one of her bodyguards shielded the mayor
from the bullets which cost their lives. That extraordinary act of loyalty saved
the life of the mayor although she suffered from bullet and shrapnel wounds in her
arms and feet. After she and her companions were rescued by reinforcing troops,
the mayor was airlifted by a chopper to Cagayan de Oro, and she was later
confined at the CUMC Hospital. The doctors pronounced her condition as stable.
In a statement the CPP/NPA leadership of Northern Mindanao
took responsibility for the incident and apologized to the mayor and her family.
It said that the higher leadership of the regional NPA did not order the action
of its armed men. And what happened was its men’s own initiative in instantaneously
reacting to a certain tactical situation in the field. It alleged that it was
the escorts of the mayor who fired the first shot. It also said that the mayor violated the NPA’s
own policies of the election gun ban, that the mayor entered the NPA controlled
territory without first asking permit and that she brought along with her police
escorts. However, the escorts of the mayor refuted the CPP/NPA’s statements and
asserted that what really happened was an ambush.
In the aftermath of the ambush different sectors condemned
the incident that was perpetrated by the CPP/NPA considering that the mayor is
already 78 years old and that she is not a candidate in the election. She is
already in the third and last of her term as mayor, and that she is not seeking
anymore another elective office. President Benigno Aquino who happened to be in
a campaign sortie in Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental made a brief visit to
the mayor in the hospital on April 22, 2013. The president who is the Commander
in Chief of the Armed Forces vowed to go after the perpetrators and bring them
to justice.
The attempt on the life or the killing of a wife of former
high government officials of the Philippines is not unprecedented. Mayor Ruth
de Lara Guingona, the wife of former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. is a
victim of communist terrorism. The most prominent victim was Aurora Aragon
Quezon, the wife of the late Manuel L. Quezon, the first president of the
Philippine Commonwealth. On April 28, 1949, the former first lady was on her
way to the opening of Quezon Memorial Hospital when her convoy of 13 vehicles
was waylaid and ambushed by about 100-200 communist rebels along
Baler-Bongabong Road. In that incident the former first lady and her daughter “Baby”
were killed.
The murder of the well-loved former first lady boomeranged
to the communists because many Filipinos were outraged of the act. Ramon
Magsaysay who was appointed as defense secretary and later elected as President
of the Philippines dealt a death blow to the growing menace of Communist
insurgency which during its height nearly captured the national capital of
Manila. The social reforms that he instituted restored the people’s faith in
the government, and his aggressive military actions against the armed communists
who were also called the HUKBALAHAP effectively crushed the communist rebellion
in the Philippines in the early 50’s.
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