MANILA, Philippines -- Gunmen ambushed a suburban Manila mayor Monday, wounding him and killing seven of his bodyguards on the eve of the 19th anniversary of the founding of the communist rebel army.
Hours after the ambush of Malabon Mayor Prospero Oreta, three unidentified gunmen shot and killed the brother of top leftist leader Jose Castro.
'I think they were trying to get me,' said Castro, whose brother and driver, Francisco, died in a suburban hospital.
Police said the attack against Castro may have been retaliation by right-wing extremists for the ambush of Ortega. There were no other details on the shooting.
An independent television station reported the Manila-based Alex Boncayao Brigade, an urban cell of the communist New People's Army, claimed responsibility for the Oreta ambush in a letter to police.
The military said the attack on Oreta, distantly related by marriage to President Corazon Aquino, was probably planned to coincide with the 19th anniversary of the founding of the New People's Army.
'It's their way of celebrating, bringing in some victories,' said an Armed Forces spokesman, Col. Oscar Florendo. 'They'll probably be celebrating all week.'
A hit squad traveling in two cars sprayed Oreta's two-car convoy with automatic rifle fire as he was on his way to work.
Oreta, struck by a bullet in the face, underwent emergency surgery and was in stable condition. Seven of his eight bodyguards died in the ambush and an eighth was seriously wounded.
Acquino appointed Oreta mayor of Malabon in a reshuffle of local officials soon after she came to power in February 1986. He was elected to the post in local elections in May.
Aquino issued a statement saying she was 'shocked and saddened by these acts of violence.'
'I have always asked our people to resort to the ways of peace,' Aquino said. 'My hope is that the democracy in our country gains a stronger foothold.'
Sunday, a man and a woman killed millionaire businessman Ruben Saulog, 52, and wounded his wife as the couple was driving to a Palm Sunday mass, police said.
The New People's Army, now 25,000-strong, began as a ragtag band of about 35 guerrillas with only 70 rifles in 1969. The group was formed in Aquino's home province of Tarlac, just north of Manila, and now operates in every province of the Philippines.
The country's armed forces were placed on 'selective red alert' - their highest state of readiness -- in parts of the more than 7,000-island archipelago in anticipation of the communist army's 19th anniversary.
In a clandestine news conference outside the capital, a rebel Roman Catholic priest told reporters the communists will announce the 'formation of provisional revolutionary governments in a few regions' late this year or early next year.
The priest, who used the pseudonym of the Rev. Brendon Cruz, said the communist movement includes a 'few bishops' and hundreds of priests and nuns.