An Italian engineer who was working as a consultant at the state-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor) in southern Luzon was shot and killed by un-identified gunmen last Monday, the police said yesterday.

Dario Patrizi, 61, was driving to work when armed men blocked his way and peppered his car with bullets, a police report said.

It added that Patrizi sustained fatal gunshot wounds to the head and the upper part of his body. He died on the spot, the report said, felled by several shots to the head after a volley of bullets pierced the windshield of his car and the window of the driver's seat.

The police are pursuing the gunmen whose identities or affiliations were not yet revealed.

Meanwhile, investigators called on Italian consultant Domenico di Candia to shed light on the assassination, a source told Gulf News.

Di Candia has been staying in a hotel in Pagsanjan town where Patrizi stayed while working on Napocor's several power generation projects, located 70 to 80 kilometres south-east of Manila. The killing was motivated by business rivalry, other sources said.

At the same time, the police and the military are not discounting the possibility that leftist rebel groups might be involved in the killing of Patrizi.

Italian embassy second secretary Martin Brook said they had been informed of the attack but ruled out involvement of communist New People's Army (NPA) rebels.

The NPA is the armed wing of the underground Communist Party of the Philippines, which earlier vowed to step up attacks after being branded a terrorist group by the U.S. and European governments.

It was also too early to say whether Italy would issue a travel advisory for its citizens against the Philippines until further investigation, Brook said.

"Police assured us that they will follow the investigation deeply and that they will give us the latest development," Brook said, adding that Italian ambassador Umberto Colesanti had personally checked on the progress of the probe.

Members of the NPA have stepped up bombing activities, assassinations, attacks on police headquarters and military detachments after the U.S. and the EU tagged the NPA and the 33-year-old Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) as terror groups.

Earlier, CCP founding chairman Jose Maria Sison called on the NPA to launch attacks on telecommunication and power facilities in the provinces after the government called on the EU to declare the CPP-NPA as terror groups.

The NPA was held responsible for the killing of James Rowe, an American counter-insurgency agent, in Quezon City in 1989.