4 Rough Riders buses torched

Cebu — At least four still unidentified men torched four Rough Riders buses at its garage in Daanbantayan about midnight Tuesday, burning down two completely.

Police and military authorities immediately suspected communist rebels as having launched the attack but this was disputed by bus company owner William Tiu who said the perpetrators could be merely residents of the area. Tiu said he has not received any recent extortion demands from the rebels but admitted that last year one of his buses was burned in Tabuelan after he refused to give protection money demanded by a caller who identified himself as a rebel.

The buses were worth more than P1 million each.

Cebu provincial police chief Maximo Calimlim said aside from the rebel angle, investigators are also exploring the possibility that disgruntled employees may be responsible for the burning. A press statement by the Armed Forces Central Command yesterday morning said witnesses saw four men carrying handguns, poured gasoline on the buses and then setting them afire. The military said the witnesses placed the ages of the attackers as between 25 to 30 but it was unclear how the witnesses were able to determine their ages when they themselves described the men as wearing hoods.

A bus helper, Virgilio Bug-ot, said he was asleep in one of the buses when one of the men roused him from sleep by pulling his feet telling him to scram, Bug-ot quoted the man as saying. Bug-ot said that after torching the buses, the men fled toward the seashore, throwing revolutionary leaflets along the way. The leaflets reportedly bore the words: "Bagong Hukbong Bayan/NPA/VPC (Vicente Padayao Command)." — Freeman News Service