DAVAO CITY ? Unidentified gunmen shot dead the chief epidemiologist of the Department of Health in Southern Mindanao on Wednesday, police said Thursday.

Doctor Rogelio Peñera was driving his Honda Civic sedan and was to enter the Countryville Subdivision in the village of Cabantian in Buhangin district here, where he lived, when attacked around 6:45 p.m. His 15-year-old daughter, who was with him, was shot in the arm.

Father and daughter were rushed to the Davao Medical Center (DMC), but the elder Peñera died on the way.

Doctors said he died of multiple bullet wounds in the head and body.

Angles

Superintendent Antonio Rivera, public information officer of the Davao City police office, said police were studying several angles in the attack.

?One is mistaken identity as his car is similar to the one owned by a neighbor,? he said, without identifying the other car owner.

But police investigators later said they dropped the mistaken identity angle after learning that Peñera?s neighbor, an engineer who owned a car similar to the victim?s, had no criminal record.

Rivera said the angle police were pursuing now was personal grudge.

?We are also looking at persons within his group, whom he might have had a quarrel with,? Rivera said.

Joel Virador, former Bayan Muna representative, said he believed government agents were behind Penera?s killing.

Peñera, Virador said, was a member of the leftist Alliance of Health Workers (AHW).

?He had opposed the privatization of government hospitals, such as the DMC,? Virador said.

Natural target

He said Peñera?s membership in the AHW could have made him a military target as the group was in the armed forces? order of battle against leftist militants.

The military had disowned the list, which Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo made public here in May.

Virador said Peñera was also vocal against many government policies.

Major Randolph Cabangbang, spokesman of the military?s Eastern Mindanao Command (Eastmincom) here, dismissed Virador?s statement.

?It?s a ridiculous accusation,? he said.

Instead, Cabangbang turned the tables on Virador and other militants in the region.

?Probably they know something, that?s why they are trying to mislead the investigation,? he said.

Rivera said police would also look at Peñera?s involvement in militant organizations as another possible reason for his killing. Dennis Jay C. Santos with a report from Joselle R. Badilla, Inquirer Mindanao