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THE
Filipino woman killed in Tuesday’s car bombing of the
United Nations offices in Algeria is the second
international civil servant from the
Philippines
to perish in a terrorist attack directed against the
world organization, the Philippine Mission to the United
Nations said.
Ambassador Hilario Davide Jr., Philippine Permanent
Representative to the United Nations, said that Gene
Luna, 48, of the Rome-based World Food Program (WFP),
was among the fatalities in the attack that targeted the
UN offices in Algiers.
Davide
said UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq notified the
Philippine Mission about the death of Luna on Wednesday
morning, shortly after the UN Secretariat received more
information on the casualties from its field offices in
Algeria.
“The
Philippines has again lost one of its own as a result of
another despicable act by the forces of terror,” Davide
said. “Gene Luna’s death shall serve as an inspiration
for our international civil servants in various
frontlines around the world to continue doing what they
are supposed to do—serve humankind.”
More
than 800 Filipinos are serving in the UN Secretariat in
New York alone plus an undetermined number serving in
various UN agencies and peacekeeping missions all over
the world.
Davide
said Luna, who served as finance officer for the WFP,
the UN’s lead agency in the fight against hunger, is the
second Filipino to die in a terrorist attack while
serving under the UN flag.
Ranilo
Buenaventura, a staff member of the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, was among the 22
people killed by a car bomb that leveled the UN
headquarters in
Baghdad
on August 19, 2003. That attack, which was claimed by
al-Qaeda, also resulted in the death of top UN envoy
Sergio Vieira de Mello and seriously injured his
Filipino assistant, Marilyn Manuel. |
