P40-M equipment torched in NPA attacks in Cotabato

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines – The New People’s Army (NPA) seems to have lost its grip on farming communities in the province that it has to resort now to violent tactics to compel villagers and private firms to pay “protection money,” authorities said.

NPA rebels belonging to two guerrilla fronts have torched some P40 million worth of trucks, road-building equipment and a rubber processing plant in separate attacks in three towns in the province since last month.

The insurgents have also set off more than a dozen roadside bombs along stretches of the national highway and farm-to-market roads in Magpet, Arakan and Tulunan towns in recent months.

Rebels in Surigao del Sur have also been on an arson streak, as at least 30 of them torched a 10-wheeler dump truck and a payloader, estimated to cost P6 million, in San Miguel town on Monday morning.

Police said the dump truck and payloader were being used in quarrying sand and gravel in the Tago River.

Officials of the Army’s 57th Infantry Battalion and police have cautioned communities in hinterland towns in North Cotabato of possible escalation of NPA attacks as they have rejected the insurgents’ demands for money and food.

1Lt. Nash Sema, 57th IB’s civil-military relations chief, said 700 farm workers were displaced when NPA rebels burned down more than a week ago the multimillion-peso processing plant of the Standard Rubber Development Corp. in Makilala town, and this has hightened public animosity toward the rebel group.

Police and Army intelligence operatives and local community sources have confirmed receiving reports that six of the more than 30 rebels who carried out the arson attack, were wounded in an encounter with pursuing government troops. – With Ben Serrano