BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – Police and Army officials are not yet certain if Communist terrorists are behind the arson attack over the weekend that damaged heavy equipment of a construction firm building a road that will link isolated farms to lowland markets in Negros Oriental province.
“This will delay progress and development in the uplands that will serve the poor,” Camp Peralta spokesman, Colonel J-Jay Javines told DNX as Negros Oriental Army and police units are still probing the Saturday evening arson attack on a construction firm’s equipment being used to build a road that will connect farmers in the remote community of Aya to lowland markets of La Libertad town.
For his part, Lieutenant Colonel Evelio Ilanga told DNX their initial conversation with Engineer Rodolfo Ybarreta, the project engineer and sub-contractor, revealed that he has not received any extortion letter or demand to pay revoluiinary tax from Communist terrorists who still have remnants in the area.
He added the project contractor is Supreme Mega Structure Builders that contracted it out to Ybarreta who is a native of nearby Amlan town.
State news agency PNA quoted Provincial Police Office spox, Lt. Stephen Polinar, as having said that the burning happened in the sub village of Manghuya around 30 kilometers away from the town proper.
The attackers, said to be armed men, doused gasoline on the heavy equipment and set it on fire.
Two backhoes, a payloader and a dump truck were damaged by the fire.
Ilanga said key features were missimg that could point to a Communist terrorist attack among them the lack of an extortion letter to Ybarreta, the lack of Communist propaganda during the actual burning, and the lack of admission until now by the terrorists.
He said, however, five gunshots were heard by those who were the incident site from the attackers estimated to be around nine men.
Ilanga also said Aya is an upland community that shares borders with mountain villages of Linantuyan in Guihulngan City, Amontay in Binalbagan town in the Occidental side and some areas in Isabela town.
Military officials have pointed out in previous reports that rebels usually use areas sharing boundaries for their mobility corridors while Linantuyan was a previous stronghold of the New People’s Army’s Central Negros Front 1.
The 62nd IB had an earlier reported last year that the CN1 had already been “dismantled,” leading to the declaration of a Stable Internal Peace and Security Status over the province with its dismantling and that of other guerrilla fronts.
