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Friday, April 14, 2006
Retired police general bewails 'smear drive'
RETIRED police general Tiburcio Fusilero tagged the allegations against him and his men as “a smear campaign” to get him out of the mountain barangay of Tabunan, Cebu City.
“They want me out so they could make money out of the lots under the project,” Fusilero said in an interview with Sun.Star Cebu yesterday.
Fusilero referred to the 504-hectare timberland in Sitio Cantipla, Tabunan, which falls within the Kotkot-Lusaran Watershed Forest Reserve.
In a memorandum of agreement (MOA), the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) gave the former director of the Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 the authority to undertake rehabilitation, protection and conservation of the area.
Fusilero signed the MOA with then DENR secretary Antonio H. Cerilles last Nov. 15, 2000, authorizing him to undertake the project for 25 years.
His responsibilities include maintenance and protection of the project, particularly from encroachment of squatters, forest fires, kaingin, illegal resource extraction, pest and diseases, expansion of farm lots and other destructive activities.
He also has the right to limit the construction of infrastructure such as bunkhouses, and nursery house and “shall not assign, encumber, transfer and con-vey his rights” without the consent and approval of the DENR secretary.
No titles
Lots located within the protected area also cannot be titled.
But Fusilero alleged that many former employees of the DENR hired to help in the reforestation program sold several hectares to private individuals for their own benefit, so he kicked them out of the program.
“Some of them have even sold their lands three times, five times already... So that when I came in, they hated me because I stopped them from making business out of this land, which they are supposed to reforest,” he said.
Fusilero suspects that a businesswoman based in Mandaue City and one of the private individuals who bought the land to be behind the controversy.
He thinks they are using the affected families to besmirch him and the program.
“Let’s look at the complainants. Are they legitimate farmers or businessmen?” he said.
Fusilero said there are more than 10 legitimate families occupying the land and are not complaining.
Since last week, at least 21 families filed incident reports before the Security and Service Group (SSG) of the Cebu City Police Office.
They accused Fusilero and his men of harassment, demolition of shanties and planting of bananas and other plants in the alleged affected families’ tilled lots.
Deaths
Fusilero denied harassing them. It was his men who were harassed and intimidated, he said. Two of his men were already killed since last year, he added.
“Did I complain? I just filed the case in court and let the court decide,” he said in Cebuano.
Fusilero said some of the private individuals who bought the land have hired goons to intimidate the laborers.
On the demolition of shanties, Fusilero explained that what they destroyed were only the structures “illegally” built by several farmers.
He said the structures were built to serve as markers of the lots that farmers plan to sell.
“These are not for purposes of farming or livelihood. Farming-farming kunohay para ma-negosyo ang luna. Mao na’y ila diha. You should differentiate real farmers from those farming for business,” he said.
Detachment
One thing that made Fusilero believe that the complainants are illegitimate is that they live in neighboring barangays.
They live in Sibugay, Pung-ol, Tagbao and Taptap, he said, adding that Sibugay is 15 kilometers away from his site and Tagbao, 12 kilometers.
As to the issue involving SSG personnel detailed in Kantipla, Fusilero said the Kantipla Ecosystems Enhancement and Protection Foundation Inc. (KEEP), where he is a founding member, allowed the SSG personnel to use its detachment.
This is because the police detachment is located in Tabunan proper, some eight kilometers away from the site.
However, Fusilero and KEEP decided to revoke the privilege given to the SSG personnel, following an incident two months ago when a wife of one of the policemen went berserk inside the detachment after catching her husband with another woman.
Some of the fixtures inside the detachment were damaged, Fusilero said. JST/(With Arrah Camillia R. Quistadio, UP Mass Comm intern)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (April 13, 2006 issue)
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