Cable thieves damage telephone
lines in Davao
By Manuel Cayon
Reporter

DAVAO CITY—Thieves, probably expecting to steal copper telephone wires cut through the protective cladding of a Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) fiber optics line under the Bankerohan Bridge here late Sunday night, seriously damaged and shut down direct dialing and Internet connections in the southern part of the city.
       The damage was estimated to be about P500,000 but Benjamin Gaite, head of the company’s Davao Business Zone, said he was “more concerned with the effect of the fiber optics thievery to the business activity of the city. It cost millions of pesos in losses for banks, shopping malls, hospitals and other business establishments which were isolated from the rest of the city and the country.”
       The local PLDT office was swamped with complaints and not satisfied with that. Complainants also went to radio and television stations to air their frustrations.
       Doods Sison, chief of the company’s Visayas-Mindanao Area Asset Protection office, said that police has assured the company they are on the ball and tracking the culprits. “We hope these thieves would be arrested and stop further attempts.”
       Gaite said, “We are appealing to government officials down to the barangay level … the communities to help us stop the activity of these thieves.”
       Senior Supt. Catalino Cuy, city police chief, said those who cut through the fiber optics line may have been expecting copper wire that they can sell to junk shops. “We are zeroing in on groups known to steal electrical lines and on the buyers of these copper wires, who sell it to smelters in Cebu and Manila.”
       Sison said they have formed the Cable Watch Program, the acronym for Community and Barangay Law Enforcement Working Against Telecom Crime and Hazard. Other telecommunications companies have joined the program.