Alleged NPAs torch 5 quarry equipment in Koronadal City
Breaking News • 16:10 PM Wed Dec 7, 2016
784
By:
DXOM-AM Radyo Bida/Edwin Fernandez
Photos by DXOM-AM Radyo Bida Koronadal
KORONADAL CITY – Police and military authorities here have launched manhunt against
about 20 armed men who introduced themselves as communist rebels and torched five
heavy equipment in the outskirt village Tuesday night.
At past 8 p.m. armed men surrounded the Happy Living Quarry Site in the borders of Barangay
Concepcion and Magsaysay, disarmed the lone security guard and torched two dump
trucks and three pay loaders.
It was the 9th
arson cases involving heavy equipment and passenger buses in the SOCCSKSARGEN
region since Nov. 13.
Supt. Barney
Condes, Koronadal City police director, said three armed men approached and disarmed security
guard Carlo Baron of Surpeme Security Agency. He was the lone
security guard at the time of the attack.
Baron told
DXOM-AM Radyo Bida Koronadal that the suspects were armed with long and short
firearms.
They told me
they were only after the heavy equipment, Baron said. At gunpoint, they took
my firearm and other guns inside the bunkhouse.
Other armed
men, who claimed they were NPAs, simultaneously doused gasoline and set on fire
the quarry equipment then left.
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Gov. Daisy Avance Fuentes condemned the arson and expressed alarm over the rash
of NPA atrocities.
Why is this
happening when there is supposedly government peace process with the communists
and a ceasefire is in effect, the visibly bothered Fuentes said.
Aside from heavy equipment, armed men claiming they were communist rebels also torched buses in Region 12, presumably for the firm's refusal to pay revolutionary taxes.