Reds targeting WV power sites

BACOLOD CITY — Police have classified installations of two state-owned power companies in Negros Occidental and Iloilo as "imminent targets" of New People’s Army (NPA) attacks.

Police said this was bolstered by frequent sightings of armed guerrillas in the vicinities of the drilling site of the Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC) in northern Negros and the National Power Corp. substation in Iloilo.

Western Visayas police director Marcelo Navarro has ordered Senior Superintendents Vicente Ponteras and Juan Mabugat, police directors of Negros Occidental and Iloilo, respectively, to ensure the security of these facilities.

In the PNOC drilling site in Barangay Mailum, Bago City, police have monitored the presence of about 30 armed rebels. They are now coordinating with the Army to secure the site.

Lt. Col. Gregorio Fajardo, 11th Infantry Brigade commanding officer, said they are not taking any chances and will promptly intensify military operations in Central Negros to pre-empt any terrorist activities of the NPA.

Police intelligence reports have also identified the Napocor sub-station in La Paz, Iloilo as among the probable targets of communist rebels.

Police have uncovered a plot to attack the installation by a certain Nida Acuestam, alias Bulac, of the NPA Southern Front Committee.

As this developed, officials of the Palinpinon geothermal power plant in Negros Oriental have also asked for military assistance to secure their facilities.

In Ormoc City, a belated report confirmed that troopers of the Army’s 19th Infantry Battalion have recovered war material from the NPA after two chance encounters with the communist rebels recently.

In the first encounter, which occurred last Oct. 27 in Sitio Bolaran, Poblacion, Albuera, Leyte, some 14 kilometers south of Ormoc, soldiers recovered a backpack containing a caliber .45 magazine, two kilos of rice, two flashlights and personal belongings.

In the second encounter last Friday, elements of the 19th IB engaged at least 20 rebels in a 15-minute gunbattle. — With Roberto Dejon