Reds torch Batangas cellsite

LIAN, Batangas — Communist guerrillas burned down another Globe Telecom cellsite in Barangay Matabungkay here Friday night, five days after a similar attack on a transmission tower of the telecommunications company in Liliw, Laguna.

The attacks, authorities said, were meant to intimidate the company for not paying so-called "revolutionary taxes."

Senior Inspector Gerson Bisayas, this town’s police chief, said at least five heavily armed men, believed to be members of the communist New People’s Army, barged into the cellsite compound at about 7 p.m., and disarmed the lone security guard, identified as Christopher Carandang.

They then set the telecommunication facility on fire by pouring gasoline on the apparatus cabin and generator set.

Residents living near the cellsite noticed the fire and immediately alerted police stationed 12 kilometers away from Barangay Matabungkay.

The rebels fled toward the sugarcane plantation in Barangay Balibago before law enforcers arrived at the scene. A police-military team was still pursuing the attackers, authorities said.

However, Chief Superintendent Enrique Galang, police director of the Calabarzon (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon) area, said they are investigating the veracity of Carandang’s claim that the rebels took him by surprise.

"How can he be surprised when the gates of the facility were padlocked at that time? He saw the (men) carrying firearms while he was inside the compound. He should have called the police at once," Galang told The STAR.

Galang said the security guard claimed "he was threatened by the (armed men) so he was forced to open the gates."

When asked about the string of attacks on cellsites in Southern Tagalog, Galang said he is planning to meet again with all security officers and engineers of different telecommunications companies to draw up security measures, including better structures for their compounds of their transmission facilities.