INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan — The New People’s Army on Tuesday (March 28) took responsibility for the burning of heavy equipment in Cagayan and Quirino provinces on March 26, five days before the communist rebels were expected to reinstall a unilateral ceasefire.
The equipment of the Pulsar Construction Corp. and the RD Interior Construction was destroyed as punishment for “disobeying the laws of the National Democratic Front (NDF),” said Victor Servidores, spokesperson of the NPA’s Fortunato Camus Command operating in the Cagayan Valley region, in a statement issued on Tuesday.
On Sunday night, two backhoes, a compactor and a hauler truck owned by Pulsar were burned by six armed men following an attack in its depot in Baybayog village in Alcala town in Cagayan.
On Monday morning (March 27), two backhoes owned by the RD Interior were burned at a bridge construction site in Villa Ysmael village in Maddela town in Quirino.
Pulsar and RD Interior are contractors of the Department of Public Works and Highways. Pulsar is the contractor of a road concreting project along the Alcala-Baggao road, while RD Interior is building a bridge near the Quirino-Aurora provincial border.
“Anyone who disobeys the laws of the revolutionary movement will be meted with a corresponding punishment,” Servidores said in the statement posted on the group’s official website.
He, however, did not elaborate.
Lt. Col. Rembert Baylosis, commander of the Army’s 17th Infantry Battalion, said the burning of equipment was the NPA’s attempt to extort revolutionary taxes from the firms. SFM/rga
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