29 October 2015•Update: 29 October 2015
By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
Security forces are in pursuit of Communist rebels suspected of setting ablaze more than a dozen vehicles and heavy equipment belonging to the country's biggest nickel producer
A Philippine News Agency report -- citing information from the municipal's police station -- said Thursday that the attack occurred in the village of Dimaluadi, in Dinapigue town in Isabela province in the country's north.
Capt. Maricel Parro told the Inquirer that the estimated 30 rebels from the New People’s Army (NPA) - the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) - also stole weapons from duty guards, consisting of a 9mm pistol. 38-caliber pistol and four shotguns.
The government-run news agency said cars, trucks and a bulldozer were destroyed in the Wednesday attack.
A military spokesperson said that government security forces are now pursuing the NPA.
Nickel Asia Corporation is the biggest nickel producer in the Philippines, operating four nickel mines.
"The desperate act of terror of the NPA shows that they have lost their ideology and concern to the people they claim to serve," the Inquirer reported Parro as saying.
"It is apparent that the NPAs have turned into bandits and are vigorously conducting extortion through their usual modus operandi of destroying the properties of civilians."
Philippines authorities consider the NPA a major threat to the development of the country's mining industry, claiming it extorts money from firms to finance its armed rebellion, not to better the lives of the people it claims to serve
Talks with the CPP and its armed wing, the NPA, were suspended in April 2013 after the rebels demanded the release of members from government custody.
Norway facilitates peace talks between the government and the NDF, the CPP-NPA's negotiating arm.
