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BACOLOD CITY – Suspected New People’s Army (NPA) rebels raided a sugar farm in Cadiz City, burning and destroying two farm tractors Sunday night, police said.
PO2 Francis Batallones, Cadiz PNP spokesperson, said on Monday that at least 80 suspected communist rebels raided Hacienda Golez of sugar planter Lope Consing in Barangay Andres Bonifacio, Cadiz City at about 10:30 p.m. Sunday.
Batallones said the suspected rebels took two tractors from a garage and brought them to a plaza and set these on fire.
Police said this was the fourth time rebels burned the farm tractors and sugarcane plantations of Consing in the upland barangays of Andres Bonifacio and Caduha-an, all in Cadiz City, starting late last year.
The raid came three days after Rogelio Danoso, alias Ka Gildo, who has been tagged by the police as commander of the NPA in northern Negros, was arrested in Barangay Bata, Bacolod City with a comrade.
Police said the raiders identified themselves as NPA members to Cecilio Consing, an administrator of Hacienda Golez.
Maj. Nathaniel Villasor, 303rd Infantry Brigade Civil Military Operations chief, said on Monday the refusal of Consing to pay revolutionary taxes was behind the attacks.
Authorities said the NPA collects P5,000 to P10,000 per hectare in revolutionary taxes from sugarcane plantation owners.
The military said sugarcane farms in northern Negros suffered at least P16 million in losses from NPA attacks alone.
The biggest attacks were those on two sugarcane loading stations, a bus, three liquor delivery trucks and other sugarcane plantations last year in Cadiz City.