Penera slay update: Slain doctor buried

Police facing blank wall

Police probers are facing a blank wall, even as relatives and friends on Tuesday buried Dr. Rogelio “Bong” Peñera, on Tuesday.

Penera was ambushed last week while aboard his car on his way home to his residence at Cabantian, Buhangin at the outskirts of Davao City.

The killing was carried out in the manner of summary killings by the dreaded Davao Death Squad, blamed for the deaths of 800 people here since 1998.

The head of the Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit (Resu) of the Department of Health (DOH)-Southern Mindanao, Penera was leading the information campaign on the influenza A (H1N1) when he was shot dead.

The doctor, a likable and low-profile government doctor, is survived by his wife Dr. Marianila Peñera and daughter, Lianne, who was also wounded in the attack by two masked men aboard a motorcycle a few hundred meters away from their Cabantian house.

 

The investigation section of the Davao City Police office earlier said they are looking at two angles: personal grudge or mistaken identity.

But friends of the slain doctors and his colleagues in the progressive groups community said Penera could have been killed by military assassins to militant organizations. Penera was an official of the Aliiance of Health Workers (AHW) and a member of the Bayan.