Of multi-nationals raising bananas on Mindanao, only Sumifru continues to swim against the current by refusing to buckle under to the NPA's program of "Revolutionary Taxation." Since Dole threw in the towel in 2011 and began realising that quarterly payoffs to the Maoist Insurgency left its bottom line a tad bit more healthy than regular violent attacks on personnel and equipment, only Sumifru has enjoyed 30 caliber machine gun fire, multiple truck burnings and all around terrible publicity. One would have imagined that the Japanese-based corporation might have learned a thing or two after the October 2011 attack on mining interests in the municipality of Claver, in Surigao del Norte Province. Hardest hit, in the financial sense, was Sumitomo Metal, a sister corporation to...you guessed it...Sumifru.
On Monday, January 15th, 2012, at 3AM, a green single axle dump truck with an M60 crew served machine gun mounted in the truck's dump body and covered with fourty guerillas clinging to the sides began picking up speed as it crossed into Barangay Tuburan, in the municipality of Mawab in ComVal, as Compestela Valley Province is known locally. Unbeknownst to the NPA an alert villager, uncharacteristically disloyal to the Maoist causr, quickly phoned in a warning to 10ID (Infantry Division) Headquarters, located in that same municipality. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to postulate an objective in that well trodden barangay. If the NPA were launching a forceful attack in Barangay Tuburan, it had to be against Sumifru and its large banana plantation.
10ID had quickly phoned a sublimated infantry brigade, the 1001st, and ordered the Duty Officer to quickly warn its 66IB (Infantry Battalion) that the NPA was en route to a large and somewhat vulnerable target within the 66th's AOR (Area of Responsibility). Much to his credit, the 66IB's Lieutenant Colonel Antonio "Tony" Florendo had recently deployed acstrike team to supplement Sumifru's SCAA (Special Citizens Active Auxiliary, the quasi-state sponsored paramilitary sublimated to the AFP but funded entirely by specific private business interests to which it serves as a unitary dedicated armed force). Off duty, Florendo was made aware of the situation and scrambled an entire company (120 soldiers) and Light Armored units, not taking any chances. He then readied himself to rendevouz with the aforementioned reinforcements.
As that single dump truck turned onto the Sumifru access road the SCAA post was already in full defensive mode. As the truck's tires hit the gravel stretch just before the post it was met with carefully directed fire that immediately stple the initiative from the attacking NPA and converted the NPA's fully offensive tactical operation into a holding.pattern. Asode from preventing any incoming threat from the truck mounted M60, two IED (Improvised Exolosive Devices) teams were prevented from neutralising the post's perimeter fencing.
As the attack passed the self-imposed 15 minute window at which point the NPA inevitably withdraws if unable to capture momentum, the post received word that Lieutenant Colonel Flotendo had already circumvented the requisite NPA Blocking Force and was now twenty minutes out the NPA suddenly withdrew, leaving behind the stolen dumptruck, the M60 mounted upon it, two M14s, two M16s, one 45 caliber pistol and the bodies of six dead guerillas:
1) Romeo T.Vender, 34, New Corella, Davao del Norte Province
2) Mario Ocay, 37, New Corella
3) Ener Rosquetes Etol, 22, Asuncion, Davao del Norte Province
4) Vicente P.Libre, Asuncion
5) Jose M.Elac, 50, Montevista, ComVal
6) Juan Paloma, 27 Monkayo, ComVal
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