Suspected NPA members burn sugar transloading stations in Negros Occidental

By Ronron
March 18, 2008

Two sugar transloading stations in Negros Occidental were burned by suspected communist rebels on Sunday night, incurring millions of pesos in damages, police said.

SPO1 Norberto Angelino said Tuesday that the incident happened at around 11:30 pm of March 16 at Barangay San Jose in Toboso town, some 113 kilometers away from the provincial capital of Bacolod City.

Angelino, desk officer at the Toboso Municipal Police Station, said in a phone interview that some 50 alleged members of the New People’s Army (NPA) perpetrated the attack simultaneously at the Victoria Milling Corporation (VMC) and the Central Lopez Sugar Corporation (CLSC) transloading stations.

He said some 30 rebels entered the VMC while another group of 20 went to CLSC. The two facilities are located about two kilometers away from each other, said Angelino.

The heavily-armed guerillas arrived on foot, coming from the mountainous area in the back, and left 15 to 20 minutes later to the same direction.

Angelino said that when the rebels arrived at the VMC transloading station, they told the lone watchman in the Cebuano dialect: “We will burn this because the company does not pay revolutionary tax.”

At the CLSC, the lone watchman, according to Angelino, was just told by the perpetrators also in Cebuano: “You are not included here so just sit down there.”

The suspects then proceeded to empty two containers of gasoline in each transloading station and set the facilities on fire.

Angelino said that at VMC, three 16-wheeler Prime Mover trucks, one 10-wheeler truck, the fuel tank, and a crane were totally burned. It also lost to the suspects one radio ICOM base and a digital weighing scale. Total worth of damages was pegged at P4 million.

While at the CLSC, totally burned were the scale house, a mounted crane, an electronic weighing scale and its accessories (computer, printer, AVR, and wirings), one unit of polaroscope, an electrical panel board, two units of generator set (10 KVA and 3 KVA), and the generator shed. Estimated worth of damage is P835,000.00.

Angelino said it was a revival of the attacks of the NPA in said town, the last of which was still in the 1980’s.

He said pursuit operations were conducted by the police and Philippine Army against the suspects at 4am of the following day but to no avail.

The 5,760-strong NPA has been waging guerilla warfare in the countryside for almost four decades now, and the government intends to put an end to it in 2010 as part of the legacy of the Arroyo administration.

Peace talks between the government and the communist movement bogged down in August 2004 after the latter was tagged as a terrorist by foreign governments./DMS