NPA attack stops irrigation project
CITY OF CAUAYAN—The government suspended a P247-million irrigation project in Baggao town in Cagayan province after communist rebels attacked teams from the police and Army that killed six policemen and wounded 14 others on Feb. 16.
The suspension would affect farmers of nine villages in Baggao town, according to the National Irrigation Administration (NIA).
The New People’s Army’s Henry Abraham Command claimed responsibility for the attack and burning of heavy equipment owned by Brostan Corp., which was contracted by the NIA to build an irrigation diversion dam and transbasin tunnels in Baggao.
According to the rebels’ statement, they were certain that the contractor was undertaking a mining operation, which, they said, would threaten the community’s water resources.
The police team had gone to Barangay Sta. Margarita in Baggao to check reports about the burning of government equipment by NPA rebels at the NIA project site.
The team fought the rebels for five hours, with the support of soldiers from the Army’s 17th Infantry Battalion.
“[Due to the attacks], the project has been delayed [although] there is a possibility that we would extend their contract to complete [the tunnels],” said Billy Tuazon, manager of the engineering and operations division of NIA-Cagayan Valley.
Deadline extensions
Brostan Corp., a construction firm led by the family of Santiago City Mayor Joseph Tan, had been granted two deadline extensions because of delays in the project at Sitio Ngarutngot in Barangay Sta. Margarita that had been attributed to the area’s “unworkable condition and unpassable road networks,” Tuazon said.
The project should have been finished on March 26 last year. The latest completion schedule would have been on May 6, but that may change after the rebels torched the firm’s two backhoes, two bulldozers, a dump truck and a pay loader.
Brostan Corp. won in 2013 the P247-million project contract, which called for the building of a 22-meter diversion dam as well as a 1.97-kilometer irrigation channel.
