Farmers foil power tower blast in North Cotabato

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines - Vigilant farmers on Sunday prevented an attempt to destroy with home-made explosives another power relay pylon of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) in Carmen town.

Muslim and Christian peasants who saw the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) strapped on the angular columns of NGCP’s tower 110 in Barangay Tacupan managed to have them removed promptly by soldiers and policemen guarding roadside checkpoints nearby.

Barangay Tacupan is an agricultural district west of Carmen, home to mixed Muslim and Christian settlers.

Chief Inspector Julius Malcontento of the Carmen municipal police said the tower carries high-tension cables relaying electricity from a state-run hydroelectric plant in Bukidnon to many areas in North Cotabato.

“It stands on an agricultural land more or less 250 meters from a national highway connecting the provinces of North Cotabato and Bukidnon,” Malcontento said.

He said responding bomb disposal experts immediately defused the IEDs, fashioned from live 60 millimeter mortar rounds wired parallel to a contraption that can be set off from a distance. This was after farmers reported seeing them tied to the footings of the power transmission pylons.

Unidentified gunmen had toppled down using IEDs two adjoining NGCP relay towers in nearby Pikit town in North Cotabato only about two weeks ago, causing an eight-hour blackout in Maguindanao and North Cotabato provinces and in all of the 37 barangays in Cotabato City.

READ: Gunmen blow up power towers in North Cotabato