SARANGANI, Philippines — Gunmen set on fire a ten-wheeler truck owned by a mall operator, destroying around P2 million worth of merchandise, in Malapatan town in Sarangani province on Monday.
The truck is owned by the management of KCC Malls, which has several branches in central Mindanao.
Five men flagged down the truck at Barangay Tuyan in Malapatan town in Sarangani and burned it using gasoline after offloading driver Ronald Sanchez and his assistants Mijares Bahinting, Jerolyn Palate, Lea Quirante, Virgil Alvarado and Julieto Saban.
Chief Inspector Aldrin Gonzales, spokesman of the Regional Police Office-12, said the arsonists, armed with handguns and M16 rifles, introduced themselves as guerrillas of the New People’s Army.
The NPA collects so-called revolutionary taxes — the government calls it extortion — from corporations and has been accused of launching arson attacks on those that fail to pay.
Rebels have been accused of burning more than a dozen buses in Region 12’s adjoining Sarangani, South Cotabato and North Cotabato provinces in the past 24 months.
Gonzales said the burnt truck was loaded with grocery goods for delivery to different KCC mall branches.
He said personnel of the Malapatan municipal police are now trying to identify the rebels behind the attack for arrest and prosecution.