Probe finds Alcadev teacher’s cottage looted before set afire

By BEN SERRANO,
and GENEVIEVE G. CANTOR
Correspondents

BUTUAN CITY — The investigation of the composite team tasked to look into the burning of the tea-chers’ cottage of tribal school Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development, Inc. (Alcadev) shows that it was looted first of valuable items before it was set on fire.

“The team composed of one investigator each from Bureau of Fire Protection, national police and the military’s civilian military operations group found out that the teacher’s cottage was looted before it was set to fire,” Sibagat Chief of Police Police Insp. Arturo So-telo Gonato told the Gold Star Daily on Sunday.

Gonato added the probe team recovered two sacks of rice and canned goods about 200 meters from the burnt facility.

Official probe results showed that witnesses during the joint investigation claimed they saw six unidentified men wearing long-sleeves, pants and rain boots burned down the teacher’s cottage early dawn at around 2 a.m. morning of Nov. 12.

In an earlier interview, the new Alcadev director Maricris Pagaran said that the Alcadev school in Padi-ay still had valuable items like power generator set, sound system, sacks of rice, cartons of canned goods and other items stored at the teachers’cottage.

Meanwhile, a former New People’s Army “finance secretary” claimed his former comrades were responsible for the burning of the Alcadev-owned tea-cher’s cottage in Padiay, Sibagat town in Agusan del Sur on Nov. 12.

Julieto Canoy, a former NPA Guerilla Front and Finance Secretary, said his informants in Sibagat saw the NPA led by a certain Ka Batic Campoz together one Jazon Flores and Arsenio Mandag went to Sitio Bo-lonbon, Brgy Padiay, Siba-gat the night before they burned down the teacher’s cottage.

“NPA allied organization immediately blamed the Army about the burning. This is our usual strategy to destroy the soldier’s image and also to generate fund,” Canoy said in a press statement issued by the 4th Infantry Division, based in Cagayan de Oro City.

Commander of 401st Infantry Brigade Col Alexander Macario, for his part, said  in a press statement, the entire 401st Infantry Brigade personnel and officials condemned to the highest degree the burning of the Alcadev school.

“We condemned this criminal act committed by these unknown perpetrators. Any school facility should not be an object of any attack. Perpetrators should be made to pay for the crime they committed,” Macario said.