NPA takes 11 electric co-op men hostage

VIRAC,Catanduanes — New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas took 11 workers of the First Catanduanes Electric Cooperative (Ficelco) hostage the other day and demanded P50,000 for their release.

Superintendent Gil Hitosis, provincial police director, said the rebels, led by a certain Ka Greg, took the Ficelco workers at gunpoint while they were laying electrical cables to energize Barangay Panuto in the municipality of Pandan, some 111 kilometers from this capital town.

Hitosis identified the 11 hostages as foreman Florencio Tabuso, stockman Mario Molina Jr., linemen Dionisio Romero, Edison Barba and Macariorito Tabuso, driver Silverio Avila Jr. and laborers Rafael Sabastuan, Filemon Tabuzo, Francis Taborara, Efren Terasola and Ronnie Techon.

Ka Greg reportedly handed a letter to Tabuso, who was in-charge of the electrification of Barangays Lumabao and Panuto, directing Ficelco general manager Carlos Gianan III to proceed to Panuto within 12 hours upon receipt of the letter.

The NPA group demanded P50,000 in exchange for the 11 workers’ release and threatened to burn two service trucks of the electric cooperative if the amount would not be paid.

Upon receiving the letter, Gianan designated two emissaries, Edwin Molina and Herbert Evangelista, to negotiate with the guerrillas.

Gianan asked the military to withhold any operations against the rebels so as not to endanger the lives of the hostages.

During the negotiations, Ka Greg reportedly told Molina that Ficelco could readily pay P50,000 because it was "earning a lot." Molina belied this, even showing a copy of the electric cooperative’s financial statements.

Maj. Gen. Ernesto Carolina, the new commander of the Southern Luzon Command, has ordered Col. Dante Bonifacio, who heads the 202nd Infantry Brigade, to airlift soldiers to Pandan.

"This is a new development in the NPA’s extortion activities in Bicol because they are threatened by the change in the lives of residents in far-flung barangays with the coming of electricity," Bonifacio said.