Bandits bomb power tower in Kabacan

NORTH COTABATO, Philipppines - Bandits bombed a steel power relay pylon in Kabacan town Thursday night, causing a three-hour outage in Central Mindanao that prompted a region-wide security alert.

The bombers, believed to be members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, toppled down tower No. 141 of the National Grid Corp. in  Barangay Kayaga using improvised explosives  set off from a distance using a mobile phone.

Barangay Kayaga is a farming district in the southwest of Kabacan, which is near the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Delta, a known haven of criminal gangs and rouge Moro forces engaged in kidnappings and extortion activities.

Captain Tony Bulao, spokesman of the Army’s 603rd Brigade, said the attack was an apparent retaliation  after the military foiled Thursday morning an attempt by the BIFF to occupy a stretch of a highway connecting North Cotabato’s adjoining Mlang and Tulunan towns.

Soldiers blocked the bandits while still massing at Barangay Tibao in Mlang and drove them away after a three-hour gunfight.

BIFF bandits laid siege on farming enclaves in North Cotabato's Midsayap town Monday, where they held hostage some 30 people for more than 10 hours to forestall an Army counterattack.

The bandits also beheaded a farmer, 31-year-old Ricarte Dionio,and executed another, Erwin Vinluan, 22, as they escaped Tuesday dawn, leaving their hostages, 13 of them public school teachers, behind.

Bulao said Army units in North Cotabato were immediately placed on full alert after the NGCP’s tower was felled as the bandits were thought to attack certain areas in the province under cover of pitch darkness.

The tower carried high-tension power cables connecting Central Mindanao to the state-run hydro-electric plant in Bukidnon.

The power outage also plunged into darkness all of the 37 barangays in Cotabato City and its surrounding towns in Maguindanao.