DAVAO CITY—The fish vendor who was hit by an improvised explosive device planted by New People’s Army rebels as they escaped a recent attack here has died, five days after he fell into a coma.
Larry Timal Buenafe, 34, a resident of Agdao in this city, was declared dead at 4 a.m. Thursday due to a severe brain injury following the explosion.
Mayor Sara Duterte expressed her grief on behalf of the Buenafe family, who she said lost a father and husband “because of the punitive actions” of the NPA rebels against the Lapanday Food Corp. owned by the influential Lorenzo family.
“Larry was murdered by people who think that it will make a difference if they punish the Lorenzos by burning their factories,” Duterte said. “The attacks, that so-called punitive action to dispense social justice did make a blowing, heartbreaking difference—to a widow, to a daughter, to a son.”
The mayor said the true victims of the NPA attacks were not the Lorenzos but the Buenafe family and the families of the workers of the box and plastic plant of Lapanday Food that the rebels torched in a raid earlier last Saturday.
Owing to the attacks, 130 employees of Lapanday are now left jobless, she said.
Duterte said the death of Buenafe and the NPA attack must be a reminder to the masses “of the twistedness of an ideology and the monsters behind it” and the fear and terror that it employs and the obsolescence of the rebel’s political belief.
The mayor joined the members of the City Council of Davao in condemning the attack, which also saw three police station commanders being relieved from their posts after the simultaneous attack of the NPA in their area of responsibility.
Duterte also asked the city’s security forces to beef up their countermeasures “to ensure that such a thing will not happen again.”
Davao City Police Director Sr. Supt. Alexander Tagum said they will implement stronger measures against all terrorists and criminals in the city.
On Tuesday, 910 Barangay Police Auxiliary members took an oath of duty and will be deployed in their corresponding barangays to lessen crimes in the city, Tagum said.