NPA owes up to Japanese warehouse attack

MANILA, Philippines - Communist rebels on Thursday owed up to the recent attack on the warehouse of a Japanese firm in Bukidnon, calling it a “punitive action” for what they called the “anti-people” activities of the company.

Mamerto Bagani, spokesman of the New People’s Army (NPA) Mt. Kitanglad Sub-Regional Command, said Sumitomo Fruits (Sumifru) was involved in land-grabbing, environmentally-destructive and anti-labor operations.

“The NPA launched the punitive action against Sumifru because of its anti-people activities,” Bagani said in a statement.

About 10-15 armed men attacked the company’s banana packing house in Barangay Barobo, Valencia City on Friday. The amount of property damage has been pegged at around P2 million but the rebels said it might have been as high as P11 million.

Military officials previously doubted the possibility of NPA rebels staging the atrocity.

“There were no reported sightings of NPA rebels along that area recently that is why we are looking into the possibility that these perpetrators are from a Lawless Armed Group plying in the area,” said Lt. Col. Romulado Landingin, chief of the Army’s 18th battalion, in a statement.

Bagani said their fighters were able to paralyze a cargo truck, a backhoe, six assorted machines and three laptop computers.

“A shotgun and a .38 revolver were also seized from the company security guards,” the local NPA spokesman said.

The rebels claimed that Sumifru’s expansion had displaced indigenous peoples and had turned them into wage laborers.

“Sumifru also wreak havoc on the environment due to its destructive operations. Chemicals and waste from its plantations pollute the water, air and the soil,” Bagani said.

Army reports said the suspects forcibly entered the warehouse and took the security guards’ firearms, cell phones and radios.

1Lt. Norman Tagros, spokesman of the Army’s 8th battalion, had said extortion by “lawless elements” could be the motive behind the incident.

“They even demanded that they be placed in the company’s payroll in exchange for their protection,” he said in an earlier statement.