Updated Dec. 15, 2020, 7:11 a.m.
By EMILY VITAL
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — A doctor who had been mistakenly labeled as New People’s Army spokesperson and her husband were gunned down by men riding in tandem this evening.
According to alternative media outfit Paghimutad, Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan, and her husband Edwin Sancelan were shot dead at 5:20 in the afternoon of December 15, near their home in Carmen Ville Subdivision, barangay Poblacion, Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental.
Dr. Sancelan, who served as the city health officer and head of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), was included in the hitlist circulated by anti-communist vigilante group Kagubak last year. She was mistakenly tagged as JB Regalado, spokesperson of the New People’s Army in Central Negros, Paghimutad reported.
Five others in the so-called Kagubak hitlist were gunned down in 2019, according to a Senate inquiry on the spate of killings in Negros island.
In a statement, the Council for Health and Development, national organization of community based health programs in the Philippines, condemned the cold-blooded murder.
“We are enraged that such act of impunity knows no bound even at a time when the whole nation is gripped by the pandemic. Her killers deprived the people of Guihulngan much needed health services especially in this most difficult time,” the CHD said.
CHD described Dr. Sancelan as “a quiet, soft-spoken and dedicated doctor whose gargantuan tasks as the city health officer involved not just medical consultation but administrative work as well.”
