BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – About P16 million worth of heavy equipment was torched by suspected members of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Hacienda Vista Alegre in Barangay E. Lopez, Silay City, Negros Occidental yesterday.
Based on a blotter filed with the Silay City police, at around 5 a.m. caretaker Randy Bylon saw three of the backhoes parked in the hacienda had been totally gutted.
Among the heavy equipment included a Caterpillar 520 backhoe worth P7.2 million; a Liugong backhoe worth P4.2 million and owned by a certain Ryan Villan; and another Liugong backhoe worth P5.2 million owned by Lantad barangay captain Arnie Benedicto.
Villan also reported to the police that the insurgents placed an NPA checkpoint on the road connecting to the hacienda.
The NPA had been linked to several cases of equipment burning in Negros in the past years.
In 2018, the insurgents also burned P120 million worth of heavy equipment and generator sets owned by a mining firm in the town of Ayungon in Negros Oriental, with the insurgents claiming the attack stemmed over the firm’s alleged destruction of the environment.
Both army and police that time believed the attack was not connected to the destruction of the environment, but due to the firm’s failure to give in to the extortion demands of the rebels.
Silay City police are investigating the incident./PN
