Cellphone Networks Subject to Terrorist Attack

A cell phone relay station in Dumannao town in the central Philippine island of Panay was destroyed over the weekend by Maoist guerrillas over the weekend according to local reports. The communist New People's Army disarmed two guards, set fire to the control room and blew up the relay tower, local military spokesman Captain Norman Zuniga said.

The NPA has a history of disrupting local cellphone network operations and a recent campaign to encourage people to send SMS's to the military if they are threatened by the NPA during the upcoming election may make cellphone networks a higher priority target..

The attack, which was part of a series of attacks that left eight people dead was the first major offensive since a ceasefire ended earlier this month. The NPA has rejected a government request to maintain the ceasefire until Presidential elections in May, saying that they no longer have any faith in the government of President Gloria Arroyo.

"The Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, together with the local government units, are now on high alert against any possible threat from the New Peoples' Army," Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye, Jr. said.

He said that the AFP and the PNP are also going after NPA members engaged in extortion activities, like collecting Permit to Campaign Tax (PCT) in the countryside, during the election period."

Posted to the site on 12th January 2004