Reds sabotage road project

BUTUAN CITY — At least eight units of road-building equipment being used in a foreign-assisted project were torched here last Thursday, and authorities are blaming communist rebels who failed to extort money from the project’s Chinese-Filipino contractor.

The contractor, engineer Arturo Ong Oh, had reportedly ignored the demand of the New People’s Army for "revolutionary taxes."

Oh’s construction firm is a subcontractor of Manila-based Concepcion Basic Builders Inc. doing work on the foreign-assisted road improvement and construction project that extends up to the Compostela Valley boundary.

Some 100 NPA guerrillas, police said, swooped down on the project site in Barangay De Oro, 15 kilometers from here, and torched three payloaders, three road rollers, one grader and a cement mixer.

Policemen who rushed to the scene were ambushed by rebels who served as lookouts, wounding three of the lawmen.

The incident was the fifth NPA attack in a span of two weeks.

Residents in the Caraga region have become apprehensive about how the guerrillas have become bolder in launching attacks near heavily populated areas such as this city, the region’s capital.

Businessmen, particularly those in the construction industry, have also expressed alarm over the NPA’s increasing extortion activities.

The Arroyo administration has declared a Lenten truce with communist insurgents. This was not reciprocated by the NPA which said that rebels will continue their attacks if the opportunity presents itself.

"Normally, we don’t engage in offensive actions during the Holy Week. But if we find one of our targets, we may strike," NPA spokesman Gregorio Rosal told a radio interview the other day.

Rosal claimed the government was insincere in the peace process by blaming peace and order disturbances on the communist movement.