Army hunts rebs in P30-M burning of SONA machines

By Angel Baybay and Dexter A. See

BONTOC, Mountain Province -- A team of suspected New People’s Army guerillas, who included six females, who torched here Tuesday nine heavy equipment worth P30 million for State of the Nation road projects are now being hunted by the army along the border of Abra and this province.

The machines were owned by a firm doing construction of the Baguio City-Bontoc Road in Mt. Province.

Cordillera police director Chief Supt. Orlando Pestano told newsmen Rono, Uy and Aquino (RUA) Construction was rushing the project for completion in December as ordered by President Arroyo when the incident happened.

“The construction firm’s management claimed they are looking for replacement for the equipment but they expect delay in the project’s completion because of the incident,” Pestano said.

Three buck hoes and six transmit mixers were burned by the rebels, said a report submitted by Bontoc Police Chief Julio Lizardo whose team proceeded to the crime scene disclosed that the pieces of equipment were burned in the early morning by a group of heavily armed individuals.

The project, involving the 7-km Package 5 of the Baguio-Bontoc Road (Halsema Highway), under the government’s SONA (State of the Nation Address) Projects, was 70 to 75 percent complete.

The contractor is also doing other concreting projects, including those on the Bontoc-Tinglayan (Kalinga) Highway.

Engineer Romeo Aquino of RUA said the rebels wanted revolutionary taxes, adding he received three demand letters from different NPA commands.

President Arroyo, during her visit to Baguio City last Aug. 29, said she expected the project to be finished by December.

The burned equipment, Aquino said, comprised one-sixth of RUA Construction’s equipment deployed in Mt. Province.

“I am just implementing projects for the people, especially in the far flung communities in the Cordillera. I am just a mere work force of the government, thus, corruption is not in my vocabulary since we are simply following orders to implement projects,” Aquino said.

The contractor said it is unfair for the rebels that his employees implementing a portion of the SONA projects are underpaid and are abused, saying that there is no sufficient basis to prove their baseless allegations.

According to Aquino, his hundreds of workers are being paid P265 to P500 minimum wage per day depending on their assigned duties and responsibilities in the prosecution of the national government’s priority projects.

The Mt. Province-based Leonardo Pacsi Command reportedly demanded P500,000, while the Chadli Molintas Command had written the construction firm but did not mention any amount.

Earlier, a man posing as an operative of the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army, a paramilitary group that broke ties with the NPA in 1986, reportedly tried to extort money from Aquino but was arrested in an entrapment in Baguio City.

He was freed the next day after Aquino forgave him.

Reports reaching Pestano said 20 to 30 heavily armed NPA guerrillas, three of them amazons, set six transit mixers and three Komatsu backhoes on fire at the RUA Construction field office in Sitio Malitep, Barangay Balili here before dawn lon Sept. 29.

The raiders reportedly woke up the firm’s employees and gathered them in front of their main office identifying themselves as NPA rebels.

The leader lectured workers about delay of their wages, low salary, and corruption allegedly committed by the contractor.

This, as other guerrillas poured gasoline on the heavy equipment and torched them.
According to the workers, the rebels also discussed with the RUA Construction employees their recruitment and fight for the poor, democracy and change in the government.

Before leaving, the insurgents herded everyone inside the quarters of the construction firm’s drivers and equipment operators and then withdrew toward Barangay Alab, also in Bontoc town.

The raiders had long been gone when Chief Insp. Julio Lizardo, Bontoc police chief, and his men arrived.

In Camp Dangwa, Benguet, Senior Supt. Alex Pumecha, Cordillera police intelligence chief, told newsmen the raiders were operating at the Abra-Mt. Province boundary.

Pumecha said joint elements of the Cordillera police and the Army are now pursuing the raiders.

Aquino meanwhile said the road project faces delay “because our employees are afraid to work.”

Despite repeated assurance from law enforcement agencies that appropriate security is now in place in the different project sites, Aquino is contemplating on slowing down his works since his workers now fear for their lives since the rebels left a warning that if they will not stop pursuing their assigned works, worst incidents will follow in the area.

Some personnel and equipment of the RUA Construction are pooled in Malitep where they could be reached and mobilized to clear road blocks particularly during the rainy months.