NPA behind kidnap of 7 DENR workers — AFP

10/23/2009

The military yesterday tagged the communist rebel group New People’s Army (NPA) as the one behind the kidnapping of seven employees of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Agusan del Sur province the other day.

In a press briefing in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesman Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner said efforts were underway to track down the group of armed men that abducted the seven members of the DENR’s anti-illegal logging task force around 1 a.m. Wednesday.

Forester, team leader Gabriel Arlan, Teofredo Pujadas, Rito Espenido, Rudy Clar, Eduardo Abogatal, Emiliano Gatillo Jr. and Efren Sabuero, members of the DENR’s Task Force Watershed, were seized by armed men on board four motorcycles who stormed the Anticala village watershed multi-sectoral checkpoint in Butuan City, which the kidnap victims were manning at the time.

Brawner said the military was able to find out that the kidnap suspects belong to the Guerrilla Front 21-B of the NPA’s Northeastern Mindanao Regional Committee, reportedly led by a certain Manuel Anob.

Brawner said the suspects have already made several demands, including the cancellation of the community-based forest management agreement operating in Sibagat area, Agusan del Sur.

The other demands of the group, according to Brawner, are for the awarding by the local government of a “certificate of ancestral domain” to the locals in the area; the approval of the establishment of a customary farm; and the cancellation of the operations of the integrated forest management agreement.

“Basically, their demands have something to do with reforestation, the implementation of laws pertaining to reforestation and ancestral domain. So it appears that they want the agreements canceled and they want to be a beneficiary; that these be given to them and they be awarded certificates of ancestral domain,” the military official said.

Brawner said the AFP had sent out troops to go after the kidnap group and secure the freedom of the seven DENR workers.

“We are conducting the operations. Our intelligence units are working to gather more information. That is why we were able to identify the leader of the kidnapping of the seven DENR employees and now they are communicating their intentions or demands,” he said.

Brawner said the military, at the moment, has its hands full as it is currently conducting operations to free the DENR workers and two other kidnapping victims in the South – Irish priest Michael Sinnot, who was abducted by a local pirate group in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Norte last Oct. 11, and a school principal in Patikul town, Sulu, who was snatched by suspected Abu Sayyaf militants last Monday.

With PNA

Back to top

For comments about this website:Webmaster@tribune.net.ph
The Daily Tribune © 2006