Rebels blow up

Six suspected New People’s Army rebels blew up construction equipment in La Castellana, Negros Occidental, Friday night causing damage estimated at P3.5 million, police said yesterday.

The bombed P8-million backhoe was being used by AC de Luna Construction firm, in the concreting of the road between sitios of Luciana and Old Fabrica in Brgy. Cabagna-an La Castellana, initial police investigations showed.

Backhoe operator Mario de Leon told the police that he and his companion, identified as Trechel Quiachon, were working overtime in concreting the road in the barangay, when six unidentified men armed with M-16 assaults and hand guns, suddenly appeared, and ordered them to stop working.

De Leon said the armed suspects placed an improvised bomb on the backhoe, while their companions brought them to a safe place, before it exploded.

The two construction firm employees were later released unharmed by the armed suspects, who fled immediately.

Lt. Col. Franco Nemesio Gacal, 11th Infantry Battalion commander, said the failure of the construction firm management to pay revolutionary taxes, triggered the destruction of their heavy equipment.

Gacal said two extortion letters from the Leonardo Panaligan Command of the Kilusang Larangan Central Negros, had been received by the staff of the construction firm in previous months, but the demand was ignored by the company, he added.

The bombing in La Castellana was the latest atrocity committed by the NPA. A month ago they also destroyed equipment and facilities of a mining company operating in Sipalay City, police records showed.

Gacal yesterday reiterated his appeal for cooperation from business firms, to immediately report extortion activities of the CPP-NPA.

Whatever the NPA calls it, Gacal said they can not hide the fact that they are destroying private properties and putting the lives of innocent civilians in extreme danger.

By this act, he added, they are now reducing themselves to common criminals who would go on a rampage if their extortion demands are not met.

Earlier, suspected NPA rebels also burned three delivery trucks of Tanduay Distillery Corp. in Escalante, burned and destroyed two transloading stations of Lopez Sugar Corp. and Victorias Milling Company in Toboso, and destroyed equipment of two coal mines in Calatrava, police records also showed.