ILAGAN, Isabela, Philippines – Some 30 heavily armed New People’s Army rebels yesterday swooped into a sugar cane plantation being developed in a remote village in San Mariano town for a bio-ethanol plant.
Senior Inspector Ruby Capinpin, San Mariano police chief, said the rebels led by Joey Ramos, alias Ka Jerome, and Michael Erana, alias Ka Poktong, burned a tractor owned by Ecofuel Land Development Inc. in Sitio Amisan, Barangay Del Pilar, San Mariano town.
Police said the site is a former logging area at the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountains.
Peasant groups have decried the proposed bio-ethanol plant, alleging that it would displace settlers there.
In San Luis, Aurora, meanwhile, government troops overran an NPA training camp after an hour-long gunbattle last Tuesday.
Lt. Col. Kurt Decapia, commanding officer of the Army’s 48th Infantry Battalion, said the encounter broke out Tuesday morning in Barangay Dimanayat while a platoon of the their Charlie Company led by 2Lt. Edwin Lauro was conducting patrol operations there.
A soldier, identified as Pfc. Erwin Dacayo, sustained two bullet wounds in the abdomen. He was airlifted to the Aurora Memorial Hospital for emergency treatment and later transferred to the AFP Medical Center. – Raymund Catindig, Manny Galvez, Ric Sapnu