Isabela's Dy to NPA rebels: Let's dialogue

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya – Days after the burning of farm equipment in a remote Isabela town by communist rebels, Gov. Faustino Dy III called on them to have a dialogue with him rather than resorting to such acts.

Dy made the call in the wake of last Wednesday’s incident wherein suspected New People’s Army rebels burned a P1.2-million tractor at a sugar cane plantation for bio-ethanol in San Mariano town.

Some 30 heavily armed NPA rebels raided the plantation being developed in the remote village.

Senior Insp. Ruby Capinpin, San Mariano police chief, said the rebels led by Joey Ramos, alias Ka Jerome, and Michael Erana, alias Ka Poktong, burned the tractor owned by Ecofuel Land Development Inc. in SitioAmisan, Barangay Del Pilar.

Police said the site is a former logging area at the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountains.

Peasant groups have decried the proposed bio-ethanol plant, alleging that it would displace settlers there.