Blast hits Transco tower in Iloilo town

ILOILO CITY – Was it a tactic to disrupt today’s balloting or a trap by communist rebels to attack government troops?

Police investigators are considering these angles behind an explosion near the tower of the National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) in Barangay Indag-an, Miag-ao, Iloilo shortly before midnight last Friday.

The blast caused slight damage on a cement post of the tower. No one was reported injured.

Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr., Region 6 police director, said they are not discounting the possibility that it was a tactic to disrupt the midterm polls today.

“But we are also considering that it was just a decoy of the New People’s Army (NPA) to attack government troops who would respond to the area,” he said.

“We don’t want a repeat of the ambush in Negros Occidental,” he said.

Five soldiers were killed and two others were wounded when suspected NPA guerrillas attacked the exploration site of Philex Mining’s Bulawan project in Sitio Umas, Barangay Camindangan, Sipalay City last May 3.

The soldiers were responding to the NPA attack when they were waylaid.

The rebels burned two bunkhouses of Philex employees, a tractor with drilling machine, and a generator set, among others.