1 suspect nabbed in NCotabato over attempt to topple power tower

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines  – Barangay officials and militiamen foiled Monday an attempt by four men disguised as farmers to topple down a power relay tower in Carmen town using hacksaws.

Responding civilian volunteers and members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit arrested one of the suspects after a 30-minute chase.

Captain Antonio Bulao, spokesman of the Army’s 602rd Brigade based in Carmen, said the suspect, who is an ethnic Maguindanaon, is now in the custody of the police, undergoing interrogation.

Farmers in rice fields around the Tower 126 of the National Grid Corporation of the Philipines were able to promptly inform barangay officials of the presence of the suspects trying to cut using hand saws each of the steel columns of the facility.

The tower stands on a rice farm in Barangay Gen. Luna, a farming district in the northwest of Carmen town.

The farmers decided to report the presence of the four men they first thought were NGCP workers when they noticed that they were not wearing uniforms and protective helmets.

The saboteurs cut one of the four steel columns of Tower 126 even before civilian volunteers and the militiamen could arrive, causing the structure to tilt on one side.

Bulao said the identity of the suspect is being withheld on the behest of the police, while efforts to identify his accomplices are still underway.

The damage the suspects had done to Tower 126 had caused slight reduction in the flow of power from a state-run hydro-electric plant in Bukidnon to franchise areas of the Cotabato Electric Cooperative in North Cotabato’s adjoining Pikit, Kabacan and Carmen towns.

The incident came just two weeks after members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters felled NGCP’s Tower No. 141 in nearby Kabacan town using improvised explosives, causing massive outage in large parts of Central Mindanao.

North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza said she has requested the 602nd Brigade and the provincial police office to tightly secure all power relay pylons in the province.

Mendoza said she has instructed the Carmen municipal police to immediately file corresponding criminal charges against the suspect who tried to destroy NGCP’s Tower 126.