Package bomb kills 8-year-old girl in Ilocos Sur

STA. CRUZ, Ilocos Sur — An eight-year-old daughter of a Protestant preacher here was killed Monday night when a bomb contained in a package exploded in her face after her father opened what he thought was a Christmas gift.

Marjorie Lovely Caligtan died before she could be taken to the hospital.

Her father, Leopoldo, 51, brother Ryan, 19, and sister, Sheila, 14, suffered third degree burns in the head, chest and arms and are now in critical condition at the Ilocos Training and Regional Medical Center in San Fernando City, La Union.

Marjorie’s mother, Elvira, escaped injury because she was in the kitchen washing the dishes when the bomb exploded in the dining room.

Ilocos Sur police commander Senior Superintendent Fidel Cimatu said the elder Caligtan had a rift with New People’s Army (NPA) cadres in their barangay in Daligan where he was the pastor of the Pentecostal Church.

"The sender must be harboring a great grudge," he said. "Imagine, he meant to wipe out the whole Caligtan family."

Leopoldo also incurred several unpaid loans from unidentified creditors, he added.

Police said the home-made bomb was made of materials used to manufacture firecrackers, a drinking glass, and a small battery to ignite the explosives.

Investigations showed the package containing the bomb was delivered to the Caligtans’ home in Barangay Daligan at around 6 p.m. Monday.

However, Leopoldo told Marjorie and Sheila that they should have dinner first before opening the package, which was in Christmas wrapping.

Police said the one-foot-by-one foot box was brought by a tricycle driver identified as Elias Handoc, who was paid P70 to make the delivery.

Handoc, 48, of Barangay San Pedro in Sta. Cruz town, told police the package was handed to him in his pedicab near the town market by an unidentified man whom he described as "tall and huge."

Investigations showed the sender’s address on the package was Barangay Calimugton, Galimuyod town in La Union, where Leopoldo grew up.

But police said the address might not be the place where the package had originated and that it could have been placed on the box to entice Leopoldo into immediately opening it.

Barangay Daligan is a hotbed of NPA rebels in Sta. Cruz, police said. – Teddy Molina, Myds Supnad, Artemio Dumlao, Jaime Laude