THE Philippine Army’s 3rd Infantry (Spearhead) Division said nearly P1 million worth of property a month was damaged due to attacks by communist guerrillas.
“From 2010 to 2012, a total of P23 million, or almost P1 million a month, worth of property has been damaged as a result of 16 NPA [New People’s Army]-initiated violent incidents against business establishments and government projects,” Maj. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr. said.
Mabanta, 3rd ID commander, said the damage included sugar-cane plantations, heavy equipment, trucks, farm tractors and facilities, and telecommunication sites that were burned and destroyed in attacks in the past two years.
These attacks, Mabanta said, also led to the death of 46 people, nine of whom were killed in an ambush in January in La Castellana.
Mabanta described such attacks as “desperate attempts to counter the government’s efforts in bringing our country into a just society and lasting peace for a sustained development. We now have a good economy and yet, elements of the New People’s Army are continuously disregarding the law and are the ones who do not want progress in our country.”
Mabanta also accused the NPA of damaging farm equipment after “extortion” demands are not met, citing the case in Poblacion, Lemery, Iloilo in 2010.
This was also the case in the attack on Philex Mining Corp. in 2011, according to Mabanta, when suspected NPA guerrillas attacked the mining site in Sipalay City, Negros Occidental.
However, in a statement on its web site, the Communist Party of the Philippines said it “punished” Philex Mining “because of its intentional dumping of toxic waste in Mantuboy Creek, Bacuyangan River and the Sipalay River that resulted to fishkill in the shorelines of Sipalay City, loss of water source for irrigation of the peasants of Sipalay and Hinobaan that resulted to decrease or losses in production.”
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