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Monday, October 09, 2006
P20-M lost in Silay airport attack
By Erwin Ambo S. Delilan
SILAY CITY -- Airport authorities estimated the damage to properties caused by the early morning attack of members of the New People's Army on the Japanese-funded international airport being built in the Silay City at P20 million.
The Maoist guerrillas, disguised as policemen and armed with assault rifles, barged into the construction site, disarmed guards then destroyed a computerized batching plant, cement-making facility and a standby power generator using homemade bombs and kerosene, police said.
The guerrillas fled after seizing 18 pistols, three shotguns and seven two-way radio sets from civilian guards.
The rebels did not harm any workers in the attack on the 187-hectare site at Silay City in Negros Occidental province, but the attack could delay completion of the project by about two months, said Transportation and Communication Assistant Secretary Ricardo "Cano" Tan.
The P5-billion-project is being funded under the 25th Yen Loan Package of the Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC). Tan said the project is already a month delayed because of the bad weather.
The attack he said will further delay the completion of the project that is 69 percent at present. The target completion of the project is scheduled on the first quarter of 2007 and operation starts on the second quarter of next year.
"This is an act of terrorism, an act of economic sabotage," Silay Police Chief Celestino Guara said.
Guara said the motive could be linked to guerrilla efforts to extort money from a construction company.
Silay City Mayor Carlo Gamban appealed to the rebels to help and cooperate instead of attacking the project, which he said is for the poor folks and Negrenses in general.
Western Visayas Police Director Geary Barias said had Han Jin informed the authorities of the demand letters sent by the rebels since last year the incident could have been prevented.
Han Jin received letters from the rebel group demanding revolutionary tax but the Korean firm has ignored this until early Sunday's incident.
It was not immediately known how much was being demanded by the rebel group as revolutionary tax.
Armed Forces of the Philippines Public Information Officer Bartolome Bacarro condemned the attack and said the incident was more evidence the insurgents have turned to banditry because the public do not support them.
However, he said, the rebel offensive will not hamper the military's resolve into crippling the insurgency problem within the next few years.
"They (NPAs) launched the attack to show that they are still in a position of strength," said Bacarro, who nevertheless admitted that the communists are still the "primary threat" in so far as the AFP is concerned.
Army troops and policemen were trying to pursue the attackers in Silay, a sugarcane-producing region 470 kilometers southeast of Manila, while a detachment was set up to augment the "outnumbered" security guards.
Police will also be setting up a police detachment at the new Iloilo airport, which is still being constructed in Cabatuan town, to avert the same incident.
He theorized that the primary motive of the rebels in attacking the airport facilities is to embarrass the two foreign construction companies, the National Government and the Police and Army authorities.
Meanwhile, Mayor Gamban said sabotaging the project will mean sabotaging the lives of the poor people who are expected to benefit from this airport.
He also said the Silay airport will eventually change the economic landscape of Negros Occidental from 90 percent agricultural to industrial and commercial province.
"This is for our children and for us. We don't want our children to go to Manila anymore to look for a job. Instead, we will prepare them an area where they could only work here so they could no longer be apart.
The rebels have about 7,200 fighters operating in five percent of all villages nationwide and attack rural troops, police and businesses who refuse their extortion demands, according to the military.
Two years ago the rebels withdrew from Norwegian-brokered peace talks on ending 37 years of insurgency, saying the Manila government was not making efforts to remove them from US and European lists of terrorist organizations. (With reports from AP/VR/Sunnex)
(October 9, 2006 issue)
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