Philippines anti-mining action

7.7.11 — 30 com­mu­nist rebels torch Philex Mining’s vehi­cles, bunk house

At least 30 com­mu­nist rebels raid­ed on Wednes­day after­noon the com­pound of Philex Min­ing Com­pa­ny in Barangay (vil­lage) Nab­u­lao, Sipalay City in Negros Occi­den­tal.

7.7.11 — 30 com­mu­nist rebels torch Philex Mining’s vehi­cles, bunk house

At least 30 com­mu­nist rebels raid­ed on Wednes­day after­noon the com­pound of Philex Min­ing Com­pa­ny in Barangay (vil­lage) Nab­u­lao, Sipalay City in Negros Occi­den­tal.

No shot was fired but the New People’s Army (NPA) rebels burned the firm’s three vehi­cles and bunk house and took six shot­guns of their secu­ri­ty guards, mil­i­tary and police offi­cials said.

This was the sec­ond time in three years that the NPA attacked Philex Min­ing. In 2008, com­mu­nist rebels torched mil­lions of pesos worth of mine drilling and heavy equip­ment as well as the bar­racks of the work­ers.

Lt. Col. Rodri­go Sos­me­na, 47th Infantry Bat­tal­ion com­man­der, said about 30 armed rebels swooped down on the min­ing com­pound, dis­armed guards of their ser­vice firearms and three hand held radios, at the their out­post locat­ed about three kilo­me­ters away from the com­pound.

The rebels, believed to be mem­bers of the Arman­do Sumayang Com­mand, also torched a car­go truck rent­ed by the min­ing firm, as well as a bunk house of the guards and work­ers.

The rebels also burned down a Kia Rio car and lat­er com­man­deered the company’s ser­vice pick­up vehi­cle, said Supt. Milko Lirazan, direc­tor of the 6th Region­al Pub­lic Safe­ty Bat­tal­ion.

The rebels lat­er with­drew towards the Philex air­port site and burned the pick-up before flee­ing in unknown direc­tions, he added.

The police had yet to deter­mine the extent of the dam­age, said Lizaran.

Sos­me­na said his troops were still track­ing down the per­pe­tra­tors as of Wednes­day night.

The rebels con­duct­ed the raid in line with the cam­paign of priest-turned-rebel leader Frank Fer­nan­dez to enforce a rev­o­lu­tion­ary pol­i­cy of com­plete­ly ban­ning “destruc­tive” min­ing oper­a­tions and explo­rations on Negros Island.

In late 2010, com­mu­nist rebels raid­ed the Mar­i­calum Min­ing Com­pa­ny com­pound in Barangay San Jose, Sipalay City, and took 20 firearms from secu­ri­ty guards and two police­men who respond­ed to the raid, police records showed.

But ILt. Rey Bal­ibagoso, 47th IB Civ­il Mil­i­tary Oper­a­tions offi­cer, said the NPA was just try­ing to project the raid as an anti-min­ing oper­a­tion to cov­er up for its motive to extort mon­ey from the min­ing firm.

He said the attack was aimed force the min­ing firm to pay rev­o­lu­tion­ary tax­es.

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