Maco LGU fails to establish communications with abductors

From the Philippine News Agency (Jun 2): Maco LGU fails to establish communications with abductors

The Municipal Crisis Committee of Maco, Compostela Valley Province is still facing a black wall on the abduction of survey inspectors from Manila as it criticized the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) of breaching protocols on coordinating with local officials in the conduct of ground survey for its National Greening Program.

“We neither have contacts with the abductors nor the survey inspectors,” Maco Vice Mayor Voltaire Rimando, who is now tasked to head the Crisis Committee said.

Rimando said the Crisis Committee cannot move forward as it might pre-empt any efforts or activities for the safe release of the survey inspectors.

Rimando expressed disappointment that DENR or any of its provincial and community environment offices did not coordinate with the local government unit prior to the conduct of the survey.

Rimando confirmed there were only five abducted by unidentified armed group.

He said the employees from the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) were not taken by the abductors, thus there was no truth that three were released.

He said standard protocol in visiting local areas should have been observed, especially that similar incidents have happened in the past citing abductions of some members of the military and police.

Rimando said even after the abduction was reported, no one from the regional, provincial or community environment offices reached out to them.

While the driver with the rented Prado car of the survey inspectors has reportedly returned to New Leyte barangay center, Rimando said no information was relayed to them.

“What happens now is just to wait for their eventual appearance. We have no words from them. Maybe they are still in a state of confusion…or maybe because there is no work today, so they did not come to us. But we are closely monitoring the situation. We really have no contacts with them,” Rimando said in a phone interview on Sunday.

Barangay New Leyte, according to Rimando, is the farthest area in the southern part of Maco and known as a red area.

He said New Leyte is tenement area formerly belonging to the North Davao Mining Corporation but is now under the Philippine Mining Development Corporation (PMDC).

Rimando pointed out the importance of coordinating with the LGU to avoid relaying information based from speculations.

“Somebody from CENRO should appear before the police station and tell what the real score is…we don’t know the situation. Probably they did not reach out to us realizing they have committed a blunder,” Rimando said in Bisaya.

Rimando said they just rely on information from the Chief of Police of Maco, who is now in the area to gather information on the abduction incident.

On Friday night, the Eastern Mindanao Command received reports from its ground forces that survey inspectors of the DENR were abducted by unidentified armed men on Friday (May 30) afternoon at Barangay New Leyte, Maco town, ComVal.

Eastern Mindanao Command Information Officer Capt. Alberto Caber said the six survey inspectors identified as Kendrik Wong, Nico Lasaca, Chris Favila, Matthew Cua, Jonas Loredo and Tim Sabina were in the area undertaking a validation and survey on the Php 1 billion National Greening Program of the government.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=2&sid=&nid=2&rid=649288