CARMEN, North Cotabato–Joint police and military authorities are hunting down unidentified men who bombed but failed to topple two transmission towers of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) in Carmen, North Cotabato early Tuesday morning.
Chief Insp. Julius Malcontento, Carmen town police chief, said the North Cotabato police office and soldiers from the 7th Infantry Battalion have joined forces in running after the perpetrators who local officials claimed were residents of nearby towns in North Cotabato.
Malcontento said the suspects planted six powerful improvised explosive devices on Towers nos. 95 and 96 located in Barangay Aroman and Barangay Kitulaan, respective, all in the town of Carmen.
Quoting village officials, Malcontento said loud explosions were heard by villagers that came almost simultaneously shortly before 1 am of April 19.
He said nobody was reported injured in the series of explosions.
Police and military bomb disposal team’s investigation showed that the suspects planted three IEDs on Tower 95 and another three IEDs on Tower 96.
All three IEDs, fashioned from 60 mm mortars with mobile phone as triggering devices and attached to the structure’s steel poles (Tower 96) went off, cutting all the three legs.“The tower remained standing and still serviceable,” Malcontento said.
At Tower 95, two of the three IEDs went off, cutting two legs of the steel tower.
“It remained standing, too,” he said, adding that the third IED was safely defused by police and Army bomb experts.
When asked why the towers were not toppled, Malcontento theorized that the other steel braces of the towers remained intact and that the power lines helped held the affected structures.
Malcontento said the two structures were also bombed in the past with Tower No. 95 bombed last December 24, 2015 and Tower 96 sometime in 2006.
“No one has owned up the bombing but police and Army probers are eyeing extortionist groups to be behind the attack,” he said.
The structures carry the 138-kv line from NGCP station in Kibawe, Bukidnon to another station in Kabacan, North Cotabato.
Malcontento said village officials of Kitulaan and Aroman have vowed to help the police identify the suspects.
“This is the fourth and fifth bombing of NGCP towers this year. Restoration of the two towers will commence as soon as the area is secured,” Melfrance Bambi Capulong, speaking for the NGCP southern Mindanao, said in a statement.
She said NGCP said the bombings only serve to increase the burden of the public, which must suffer through service interruptions when towers are bombed.
“NGCP appeals to the local community and its leaders to help identify the perpetrators of the bombings to prevent longer power interruptions,” she said.
Malcontento said police and Army were deployed around the two towers while repair works conducted by NGCP field personnel were going on.
NGCP spokesperson for Mindanao Milfrance Capulong said personnel of the NGCP can only start restoring the towers if the area is already secured.
“The company stresses that the bombings only serve to increase the burden of the public, which must suffer through service interruptions when towers are bombed,” she said.
She added the NGCP “appeals to the local community and its leaders to help identify the perpetrators of the bombings to prevent longer power interruptions.”
Romeo Montenegro, director for Investment Promotions, International Relations, and Public affairs of Mindanao Development Authority, said the continuous attacks on the transmission lines would only worsen the power situation in the island.
“We received report of another attempt to topple two NGCP towers in North Cotabato this morning which could have cut transmission between the Kibawe-Kabacan line. These deplorable acts only compound the already precarious power situation in Mindanao and could result to longer periods of rotating brownouts,” he said.
In January 2016, NGCP tower 63 in Aleosan, Cotabato and Tower 50 in Bubong in Lanao del Sur were bombed while a transmission pole in Salimbao, Sultan Kudarat in Maguindanao was burned. Those three attacks on NGCP transmission lines happened in a span of nine days.
Last year, 16 NGCP towers were bombed, the most controversial of which was the Christmas eve bombing on Tower 25 in Ramain, Lanao del Norte when landowners refused NGCP personnel entry to the area due to unsettled claims with the government. Tower 25 was repaired on March 14, 2016.
The bombing on Tuesday happened two months after the creation of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Security of Energy Facilities to address attacks on NGCP towers and right-of-way claims in Mindanao.
Members of the task force included the Department of Energy, National Transmission Commission, NGCP, MinDA, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, Department of Interior and Local Government, National Power Corporation, Department of Justice, and Land Registration Authority.
The agencies have since been re-grouped to attend to the several issues hounding the power sector of Mindanao. (philippine news agency and mindanews)
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