Pleading for his life, a wounded Jaime Celeste asked a communist rebel who had approached him. The guerrilla replied, "Kamo wala sala pero ang inyo gitrabahon daku og sala namo (You have not committed anything wrong but your employer has done us grievous wrong)."
Then shots rang out. Thus recalled PO2 Rufo Canundo, one of the survivors in the New People’s Army (NPA) attack at the state-run Tonongan geothermal plant in Barangay Milagro here last Friday.
Celeste, along with two other employees of the Philippine National Oil Corp. (PNOC) and two policemen, was killed in the attack.
Celeste’s wife, Ananita, cried hysterically when she saw his remains at the V. Rama funeral parlor in Barangay Cogon here, his head wrapped in plastic because Armalite bullets had shattered the back of his skull.
Fellow PNOC worker Aldren Alcober, 25 and single, suffered the same fate, his face charred and the back of his head cracked by bullets. His father, Arturo, sobbed, speechless.
For his part, Macario Flores could only recall the day when his son Gerry told him about his decision to work as a computer operator at the PNOC plant here. The family hails from Burauen, Leyte.
"He was getting a good salary in Manila," he said. The young Flores, who left a one-year-old child from a two-year marriage, used to be a computer programmer for a plastics company in Manila.
The families of the three PNOC workers — as well as of PO2 Mario Udtojan and PO1 Michael Dagami — now echo the same call — justice for their loved ones.
Meanwhile, workers at the geothermal plant’s Rig 8 said the rebels wanted to avenge the death of nine comrades who were killed in a clash during the Holy Week last year.
The attack came two days before the NPA marks its 35th founding anniversary.
According to the workers, 12 rebels went to Rig 8 at about 5 a.m. Friday, and proceeded to torch a hydraulic crane and a trailer truck, and repeatedly shot the diesel fuel tanks with M-16 and M-14 rifles, until the fuel was spilled.
The guerrillas, they said, took their cellular phones and told them to hide as the rebels awaited the arrival of soldiers.