BACOLOD CITY, Philippines – An estimated 70 New People’s Army rebels swooped down on the landholding of business tycoon Eduardo Cojuangco in Himamaylan City, southern Negros Occidental Sunday night, burned farm implements and held 25 workers hostage, Army reports showed.
The rebels, believed to be members of the Leonardo Panaligan Command, disarmed two security guards of ECJ Farms in Hacienda Nieva, Sitio Bugtong-Bugtong, Barangay Tooy and set fire on the irrigation house and engines of five power spray used in the mango plantation while herding all farmworkers in one place at gunpoint, 11th Infantry Brigade Commander Franco Nemesio Gacal said.
The farm workers of Cojuangco were later released by the rebels, while withdrawing towards the hinterlands of Barangay Buenavista, Himamaylan City, he also said.
The incident came a week after 11th Infantry Battalion troopers arrested five suspected members of the Leonardo Panaligan Command in Barangay Buenavista, Himamaylan, and recovered three firearms, a CPP-NPA flag, an ICOM radio handset from their respective possessions.
Gacal raised the possibility that it could be a retaliatory act on the part of the NPA after they had captured five of their comrades.
“I think they are trying to make their presence felt in the community that they are still a force to reckon with,” he said.
Both the military and police have tightened the security on five detained rebel suspects, following reports of possible attempts to rescue them at the police lock-up cell of Himamaylan City in Negros Oriental. – Antonieta Lopez and Cecille Suerte Felipe