TAGUM CITY, Philippines– Suspected New People’s Army rebels on Saturday staged a fresh attack in Compostela Valley and burned a container van loaded with bananas.

About 30 gunmen under the rebels’ Guerrilla Front 27 blocked the road in Purok Riverside, Barangay (Village) Katipunan, Maragusan town at 6 a.m. and flagged down the container truck of Dole-Stanfilco, Maj. Randolph Cabangbang, the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command spokesperson said.

The armed men ordered the truck’s driver, Aude Avenido, 19, of Polomolok, South Cotabato, to get off before setting the cargo van loaded with 1,600 crates of banana on fire, a report from the Maragusan police revealed.

Police said the truck was on its way to the Panabo City wharf in Davao del Norte to deliver its cargo when it was stopped by rebels.

No one was hurt during the attack, police said.

Cabangbang said the torching resulted in at least P1.2 million in damage, but according to the police, the burned bananas as well as the cargo van cost P4 million.

Soldiers and militiamen in the area have been conducting pursuit operations against the suspected rebels, Cabangbang said.

Last August, NPA rebels also burned two trucks of the Dole-Stanfilco in the same town, causing several millions of pesos of damage.

Authorities said the company’s refusal to pay the rebels the so-called revolutionary tax caused the attacks.