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Monday, October 18, 2004
Tribal chief implicates vice mayor in logging
By Antonio M. Ajero
DAVAO CITY -- Government foresters acting on a complaint lodged by a barangay tribal chieftain reportedly seized last week several illegally cut logs in Abejod, a barangay of Cateel in Davao Oriental.
The tribal chieftain, Ermelita M. Latiban, a resident of Sitio Magobahong, Abejod, later executed an affidavit before Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Rolando L. Acido in the town of Baganga, accusing Cateel Vice Mayor Aristotle Abella of being behind the alleged illegal logging operation in her barangay.
Latiban, who is the vice chair of the Council of Elder Leaders of Cateel and also chair of the Cateel Mandaya Tribe Inc., said in her affidavit that the site being logged is part of the area claimed by lumads (natives) as Mandayan ancestral domain, whose resources have to be protected.
Latiban said she was accompanied by foresters Henry Yap and Gilbert Dragas of the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office-Baganga to Abejod to seize the logs and arrest the suspects.
She narrated in her two-page affidavit that upon arrival in the area at about 11 a.m. of October 11, she and the foresters saw a bulldozer allegedly owned by Vice Mayor Abella "dragging a lawaan log to the roadside close to the log pile of about five (5) truckloads."
She said Forester Yap arrested the bulldozer operator, stopping the operation. Latiban also said to have seen a "saddam" truck loaded with lawaan logs at a distance.
She also alleged that the truck was owned by Vice Mayor Abella.
The lady tribal chieftain said in her affidavit she first came across logs in commercial quantities, which were felled in the vicinity of Pangihulid Creek, sometime in June this year.
Knowing that nobody holds a permit to cut logs in the area, Latiban said she told people she saw in the area to stop their illegal activities, otherwise she would report the matter to the authorities.
She said that certain people associated with the vice mayor allegedly attempted to bribe her by offering her money equivalent to the "price" of one truckload for every 10 truckloads of logs shipped out of the area in exchange for her silence.
She said she rejected the offer, "knowing the implications of illegal logging."
The Philippine Army's 36 Infantry Batallion under Col. Paterno Morales dispatched personnel led by one Lt. Feliver Indab to provide security to Latiban and the foresters.
Regional Executive Director Edilberto S. Buiser confirmed his foresters' operation in Cateel but that he has yet to get a full report from the field this week.
Buiser on Sunday promised to provide Sun.Star details of the report once he receives it.
Unconfirmed reports from Cateel said hauling of logs confiscated from Abejod to the municipal grounds of Cateel was being resisted by a group of armed men allegedly associated with the vice mayor.
Attempts to contact Vice Mayor Abella for his side of the accusations of Latiban failed.
Sun.Star, however, gathered that the vice mayor's legitimate business involves buying and selling falcata.
(October 18, 2004 issue)
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