AFTER over three years in trial, the harassment charges hurled by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and some local police officers against a Higaonon tribe member in Opol town, Misamis Oriental had been dismissed, proving the defendant’s innocence.
Due to lack of sufficient evidence, Judge Michelia Capadocia of the Opol Municipal Trial Court favored Edwin Baranggot last Tuesday in her decision acquitting him from direct assault allegations of some law enforcers.
The NBI and some police officers who escorted the security guards of a plantation firm in Opol alleged Baranggot of attacking them on March 10, 2011.
The petitioners were former Opol municipal police chief Rogelio Lacor and NBI-Northern Mindanao agents Nolan Gadia, Danilo Cabanlit, and Noel Balighot.
Baranggot, Higaonon member of “Pangalasag” (Indigenous shield), however, said it was the security guards of A. Brown Company Inc. (ABCI) and authorities who "harassed and terrorized" him.
Pangalasag is a community-based indigenous organization resisting oil palm plantation expansion of A. Brown in Opol.
In a statement sent through email by the civil society group Kalumbay on Wednesday morning, it said seven Higaonon members were about to cut down some bamboo trees within the ranch owned by the Paras family when guards from the ABCI prevented them from doing so.
The statement added that the Lumads decided to go another way.
"An hour later, armed men followed them. The men, who said they were from NBI suddenly fired at them. Baranggot was beaten up, threatened and illegally detained at the Opol Police Station," it added.
According to Jomorito Goaynon, chair of Kalumbay-Northern Mindanao, Baranggot’s companions were able to escape.
Goaynon said Baranggot was later transferred to the region's NBI office in Cagayan de Oro where he was charged with direct assault.
Baranggot is a staunch supporter to end operations of the ABCI plantations on the lands where Higaonons till for banana, coconut and other crops.
The ABCI has been buying lands in the area from the local government where they plant oil-producing palm trees.
Goaynon said they welcome the decision of the court, adding Baranggot is somehow relieved and happy of its decision.
However, Goaynon said they would not stop to advance their real cause -- to win back the ancestral domain that is due to the indigenous people.
"It not only proved the innocence of those implicated, but also to some degree, is a statement in support of the legitimacy of the struggle of Opol's Higaonons for their right to their ancestral lands," Goaynon said.
He added: “This is just timely given that the court proceedings have far outstretched the Pangalasag members’ financial resources, considering that most of them have been forced out of their farms and were not immediately able to find viable sources of income.”
Elusive justice
Meanwhile, two years after his brutal death, justice for Gilbert Paborada, former chair of Pangalasag, still remains elusive.
On October 3, 2012, Paborada was shot eight times in different portions of his body at a close range while on board a motorcycle in Barangay Puntod, Cagayan de Oro.
Paborada's wife Daisy told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro in a previous interview of her dismay over the elusive justice on the death of her husband.
Daisy strongly believed Paborada's demise was hugely related to land dispute.
She appealed to authorities for the re-investigation of his husband's demise as suspects remain unidentified until today.