Communist rebels ambush mayor's convoy

MANILA (AP):

Officials say communist rebels ambushed the convoy of a city mayor and wife of the Philippines' former Vice-president Teofisto Guingona Jr, killing two of her aides and wounding a police escort.

Chief Superintendent Generoso Cerbo, the national police spokesman, said yesterday that Mayor Ruth Guingona of southern Ginoog City suffered abrasions from late Saturday's attack and that she and the wounded policeman were out of danger. A regional police report says Guingona was hit in her lower right knee.

The report says Guingona's group was traveling late Saturday after attending a beauty pageant in a hinterland village of Ginoog when communist rebels manning a roadblock fired at her vehicle, causing it to overturn. The rebels and Guingona's six police escorts then traded shots before the rebels fled.