(First of 2 parts)
AT AROUND 6 a.m. on Dec. 19, 2014, some 100 armed men on board five motorized outrigger canoes approached the Harbour Centre Port Terminal Inc. at the Manila South Harbor from the sea and opened fire on the port facility’s security personnel.
The seaborne assault was repelled in the ensuing firefight after one of the “pump boats” was disabled, and the rest of the raiding party fled on the four remaining high-speed vessels.
When the smoke cleared, 49 of the men were arrested and turned over to the responding elements of the Manila Police District. Recovered from the suspects were high-powered firearms, ammunition and 10 hand grenades.
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More tellingly, the “attack” happened a day after a regional trial court in Pasig City ordered the group of ports and real estate magnate Reghis Romero II to return control of the facility to his estranged son, Michael, whom the former had ousted from the firm a few months earlier.
The elder Romero believes that the attack was ordered by his son in a bid to retake control of the port after being removed during a boardroom coup that was prompted by supposedly persistent reports of financial anomalies during the latter’s nine-year stint at the helm of the company.