MANILA, 27 December 2007 — Seven people were injured in a bomb attack on the house of a lawmaker in the northern Philippine province of Abra late on Tuesday, hours after gunmen ambushed a town mayor in another province, police said yesterday.

Both attacks were suspected to be politically motivated and the police commander of the Cordillera Administrative Region, which groups several upland provinces, ordered tightened security to prevent the violence from spreading.

In the first Christmas Day attack, gunmen peppered the car of Mayor Cesar Rafael of Paracelis town in Mountain Province minutes after he left his farm in barangay Palitod after lunchtime, said Chief Supt. Eugene Martin, the regional police chief,

Martin cited a report by Senior Supt. Joseph Adnol, the provincial police chief, as saying the gunmen pumped more than 60 bullets into the car that Rafael’s body was shattered to pieces.

Local media reports quoted Mountain Province Gov. Maximo Dalog as saying at least five men may have been involved in the attack. “They really wanted him dead,” said Martin, who added that they were looking into different angles, including politics and a land dispute.

A report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer said Rafael was recently elected president of the mayors’ league of Mt. Province and that his daughter, Ana Maria Paz Rafael-Banaag, is mayor of nearby Natonin town.

The paper also said Rafael owned a huge tract of land there and had donated his house to be turned into a school in the village.

Paracelis, a remote town more than four hours’ drive from the provincial capital town of Bontoc, shares borders with the provinces of Isabela, Kalinga and Ifugao.

In the Tuesday night attack in Abra province, police said three of the sons of Rep. Cecille Luna were among those wounded by an explosion at the lawmaker’s home in the province capital, Bangued.

They were identified by the Inquirer as Lagayan Mayor Jendricks Luna, 36; Dangdangla barangay captain Ryan Luna, 30; and Cromuel Luna, 35.

Abra police chief Senior Supt. Alexander Pumecha said one of the sons and two other victims who suffered second- and third-degree burns.

Pumecha said investigators have yet to determine what caused the blast.

“It might be politics,” he said, adding it was also possible that firecrackers accidentally exploded.

Luna won a tightly contested race against then-Gov. Vicente Valera, whose family has been in power in the province for three decades. Six of her cousins and nephews were killed during the campaign in an apparent ambush by political rivals.

Valera has been linked by the police to the assassination of the province’s sitting representative, Luis Bersamin, outside a church in Quezon City while attending a wedding in December 2006. Warlords are known to operate in Abra, one of the most violent places in the country. (With input from Agencies)