Bandits bomb another NGCP tower in North Cotabato

PIKIT, North Cotabato - Moro bandits bombed a power transmission relay tower here Sunday night, the second in Central Mindanao in just seven days.

The bombing of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) tower in Sitio Punol in Barangay Batulawan, caused a four-hour power outage in all of the 37 barangays in Cotabato City and in parts of the adjoining North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces.

Lt. Col. Audie Edralin, commanding officer of the Philippine Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion, said the bombers strapped the explosives on the columns of the tower and set them off from a distance using a mobile phone.

He said intelligence agents of the 7th IB, which has jurisdiction over Pikit and neighboring towns, are now helping the police determine the identities of the bombers.

Local officials are convinced the brigand Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, which is opposed to the ongoing peace overture between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, was behind the bombing.

The group is also being blamed for last week’s bombing of NGCP’s tower number 26 in Barangay Galakit in Pagalungan town in Maguindanao, some eight kilometers northwest of Pikit’s municipal center.

The destruction of the power relay pylon in Barangay Galakit had caused three hours of blackout in many parts of Central Mindanao.

The two towers destroyed in the bombings carried high-tension power lines connecting parts of the region to state-run hydro-electric plants in Lanao del Sur and Bukidnon.