NPA rebels torch P30-million heavy equipment used in SONA project

MANILA, Philippines - The construction of the Baguio City-Bontoc Road in Mt. Province is expected to be delayed after suspected New People’s Army (NPA) rebels torched the other day nine heavy equipment costing P30 million of a construction firm doing the project.

Chief Superintendent Orlando Pestano, Cordillera police director, said the Rono, Uy and Aquino (RUA) Construction is rushing the project for completion in December.

“The construction firm’s management claimed they are looking for replacement for the equipment but they expect delay in (the project’s) completion because of the NPA’s atrocities,” Pestano said.

According to RUA Construction, the project, involving the seven-kilometer Package 5 of the Baguio-Bontoc Road (Halsema Highway), under the government’s SONA (State of the Nation Address) Projects, was 70 to 75 percent complete.

The contractor is also carrying out other concreting projects, including those on the Bontoc-Tinglayan (Kalinga) Highway.

“They wanted revolutionary taxes,” said engineer Romeo Aquino, adding that he had received at least three demand letters from different NPA commands.

The Mt. Province-based Leonardo Pacsi Command had reportedly demanded P500,000, while the Chadli Molintas Command had written the construction firm but did not mention any amount.

Earlier, a man posing as an operative of the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army, a paramilitary group that broke ties with the NPA in 1986, tried to extort money from Aquino but was arrested in an entrapment in Baguio City. He was freed the next day after Aquino forgave him.

According to reports reaching Pestano, 20 to 30 heavily armed NPA guerrillas, three of them amazons, set six transit mixers and three Komatsu backhoes on fire at the RUA Construction field office in Sitio Malitep, Barangay Balili in Bontoc, Mt. Province before dawn last Tuesday.

Identifying themselves as NPA rebels, the raiders woke up the firm’s employees and gathered them in front of their main office.

The rebels’ leader lectured the workers about the delay of their wages, low salary, and corruption allegedly committed by the contractor.

While this was happening, the other guerrillas poured gasoline on the heavy equipment and torched them.

The rebels also discussed with the RUA Construction employees their recruitment and fight for the poor, democracy and change in the government.

Before leaving, the insurgents herded everyone inside the quarters of the construction firm’s drivers and equipment operators and then withdrew toward Barangay Alab, also in Bontoc town. 

The raiders had long been gone when Chief Inspector Julio Lizardo, Bontoc police chief, and his men arrived.

Senior Superintendent Alex Pumecha, Cordillera police intelligence chief, said the rebel raiders were operating at the Abra-Mt. Province boundary.

Pumecha said joint elements of the Cordillera police and the Army are now pursuing the raiders.

Aquino said the road project faces delay “because our employees are afraid to work.”

“Definitely we will not finish it on time,” he added. This, as President Arroyo, during her visit to Baguio City last Aug. 29, said she expected the project to be finished by December.

The burned equipment, Aquino said, comprised one-sixth of RUA Construction’s equipment deployed in Mt. Province.

Pestano ordered security measures beefed up in all vital installations and government project sites in the Cordillera region to prevent another NPA attack.

– With Charlie Lagasca