Brothers climb tower to demand land payment

BROTHERS Rey and Amy Boy del Rosario on top of an NGCP tower in Matanao town, Davao del Sur province ORLANDO B. DINOY/INQUIRER MINDANAO

MATANAO, Davao del Sur—At first glance, it looked like brothers Rey, 40, and Amy Boy del Rosario, 30, were trying to commit suicide when they climbed a tower of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) in Barangay Cabligan here on Monday.

The brothers’ act caused a monstrous jam on the Davao-Cotabato highway portion of Cabligan as they refused to heed calls for them to climb down.

Law enforcement authorities and local officials rushed to the scene to convince them to go down.

The two brothers were spotted with food packs and water up the tower, which later led authorities to conclude that they were not trying to commit suicide.

Even then, law enforcers asked the brothers to come down as they risked being electrocuted, but the brothers refused.

Their father, 60-year-old Ambrosio, also talked to his sons but the brothers insisted that they would go down only if the NGCP would keep its side of the bargain.

It was the elder Del Rosario who explained that the NGCP still owed the family money for putting up towers on their 7.7-hectare property.

He said some of the debt dated 20 years back and the power transmission company also owed them money for cutting down some of their mango trees so the towers could be put up.

“Actually, they installed the first tower 20 years ago and promised us that they would pay us an undisclosed amount for the use of our land,” Ambrosio said.

“But then, they started constructing another tower but no payment had been given to us,” the 60-year-old father said.

He said that in the construction of the new tower, the NGCP also cut down some of the family’s fruit-bearing trees, to his and his sons’ dismay.

Ambrosio said they tried to stop the construction of the tower by filing a case in the Regional Trial Court here a few months ago. Orlando B. Dinoy, Inquirer Mindanao