NPAs raid 3 banana plantations

DAVAO CITY – New People’s Army (NPA) rebels continued their rampage in Southern Mindanao, raiding three banana plantations in the outskirts of this city Wednesday night.

Chief Superintendent Andres Caro II, Southern Mindanao police director, said the guerrillas swooped down on the banana plantations after their owners refused to pay so-called “revolutionary taxes.”

Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno is expected to meet with the Regional Peace and Order Council today to assess the security situation in the region.

Reports said at least 20 NPA rebels led by Leoncio Pitao, alias Kumander Parago, first attacked the Cabaguio Farms in Sitio Fatima, Barangay Mandug, about 20 kilometers from the city proper, at around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The insurgents, who arrived on board a Hyundai Starex and Mitsubishi L300 van with license plates LCD 581 and LWW 201, respectively, held the farm’s laborers hostage and took all the SIM cards of their cellular phones.

The guerrillas then torched four dump trucks and two backhoes owned by engineer Ruben Quigue of Cabaguio Farms.

After attacking Cabaguio Farms, the rebels aboard the L300 van reportedly swooped down on the hangar of Lapanday Farms, firing their guns indiscriminately. There was no aircraft at the hangar at the time of the raid.

From Lapanday, the rebels proceeded to the farm of a certain Nonoy Rodriguez in adjoining Barangay Tigato where they divested the security guards of 9-mm and caliber .22 pistols and two shotguns.

They commandeered another vehicle for their escape after their Mitsubishi L300 conked out.

The insurgents aboard the Starex van went to Barangay Callawa, and the rest of the group proceeded to Barangay Tigato where they forcibly took a passenger jeepney that brought them to Barangay Mandug.

Upon reaching Barangay Mandug, reports said the guerrillas abandoned the jeepney and forcibly took a Toyota Prado, which they later left in Barangay Callawa, as they fled to the mountain on foot.

The STAR learned that the Starex and L300 vans, owned by a certain Benito Sabido, were contracted by a certain Danilo Burlat for a supposed trip to Pindasan, Davao Oriental.

Burlat reportedly instructed the vans’ drivers to proceed to the Victoria Plaza shopping mall along J. P. Laurel Avenue here where a man and a woman boarded each vehicle.

The vans proceeded to Barangay Acacia where Pitao and his followers boarded them.

Last Wednesday, government troops foiled an NPA attempt to torch a Globe Telecom tower in Boston, Davao Oriental.

A number of rebels were believed wounded in the 15-minute gunbattle that ensued.

Guerrillas, however, succeeded in bombing a Globe Telecom cell site in Pinukpuk, Kalinga last Sunday, prompting heightened police alert in the province and elsewhere in the Cordillera region.

Chief Superintendent Eugene Martin, Cordillera police director, said at least 30 heavily armed NPA guerrillas swooped down on the cell site compound at around 9:30 p.m. Sunday, and tied up the lone security guard, Manuel Labbutan Jr., and his wife who was delivering his supper, before planting sticks of dynamite on the base of the tower.

Police said Labbutan’s brother Amboy rushed to the cell site where one of the rebels struck him with a piece of wood.

Amboy left and later returned with a bolo, hacking a guerrilla to death and helping Manuel and his wife escape.

Also in Pinukpuk, Kalinga, three soldiers on a civil-military outreach mission with their colleagues were killed in an NPA ambush yesterday.

Unverified reports said the rebels took another soldier hostage. – With Jaime Laude, Artemio Dumlao, Myds Supnad, Charlie Lagasca and Roel Pareño