Spate of Violence Aimed at Undermining Her: Aquino

A bomb hidden in a shopping bag blew up today in a department store packed with Christmas shoppers, injuring about 35 people, just hours after a friend of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile was shot to death in an ambush.

President Corazon Aquino told a national audience in a televised interview that the escalating violence is directed at her. She vowed to retaliate once she knows “which forces are with me.”

Police said a homemade time-bomb exploded at a ground-floor counter in the Shoemart Department Store about 7:20 p.m. No group claimed responsibility, and police reported no arrests.

Hospital sources said about 35 people were treated for cuts and bruises, but no one was hurt seriously.

Half an hour before the blast, an unknown assailant tossed a grenade into the crowded balcony of a movie theater two blocks from the department store, but the device did not explode.

Gunmen Dressed as Women

Earlier today, David Puzon, 65, a right-wing businessman and friend of Enrile, was killed along with his driver and a factory manager by a band of gunmen dressed as women 10 miles northeast of Manila. Puzon was a National Assembly member during the regime of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos. (Story on Page 25.)

Puzon’s slaying followed last week’s killing of Rolando Olalia, a leftist whose death his supporters blamed on “fascist elements” they said were allied with Enrile, who has been a prime critic of Aquino’s negotiations with communist rebels. Leftists plan a mass march through Manila on Thursday as part of Olalia’s funeral.

No arrests have been reported in any of the cases, but the military command blamed communist New People’s Army rebels in the Puzon slayings.

During her televised interview, taped today before the department store bombing, Aquino said she is uncertain who is behind the escalating violence.

“There are so many who could have done this,” she said. “But clearly I am involved. It also was directed against me.”

‘Want to Be Good and Ready’

“I am convinced there is a time to do battle, but I want to be good and ready, to know which forces are with me,” she said. “When I fight, I want to be sure I will win. If I were not president, I would have fought them all. But I also have to think that this will affect not only me but the whole country.”

In the Puzon slaying, gunmen sprayed his car with automatic fire, killing him and one of his factory managers. Government television said the assailants then pulled Puzon’s chauffeur from the car, dragged him across the street into a ditch and shot him.

Puzon’s daughter-in-law, Eva Puzon, was seriously injured and told a television interviewer she survived by pretending to be dead.

In separate attacks today, two town police chiefs were ambushed and killed in Pampanga province, which includes the U.S. Clark Air Base.

Also today, Aquino ordered government negotiators to “produce a cease-fire within the month” in peace talks with communist insurgents stalled by the murder of Olalia. Aquino’s order came after a Cabinet meeting on an economic recovery program for the debt-strapped country, Agriculture Minister Ramon Mitra, a member of the government panel in the 4-month-old peace talks, told reporters.