Suspected NPA rebels hurt 2 farm workers

NORTH COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Suspected communist rebels on Friday wounded two banana farm workers they shot with assault rifles while asleep in a hut inside the plantation where they work.

The incident was preceded by the August 4 attack by New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas on the Lapanday Cavendish banana plantation in Tampakan town in South Cotabato, which left a company guard dead and five combatants of the Army’s 27^th Infantry Battalion wounded.

Police investigators said farm workers Ryman Polines and John Rommel Sasi were resting in a makeshift hut in a banana farm in Barangay Kalasuyan southeast of Kidapawan City when gunmen opened from a distance.

The rifle ammunition the suspects fired pierced through the thin walls of the hut, made only of indigenous materials, hitting them both in different parts of their bodies.

Polines and Sasi were rushed to a hospital by responding barangay officials.

Less than an hour later, villagers saw the victims’ resting place billow in smoke, apparently set by the suspects on fire.

There are talks spreading around that the suspects perpetrated the attack to intimidate and force the owner of the banana farm to shell out “protection money” on a regular basis.