5 snatched DENR employees freed

MANILA, Philippines - The five surveyors of the environment department who were kidnapped by communist rebels in Compostela Valley last Friday have been released, a local official said yesterday.

Maco, Compostela Valley Vice Mayor Voltaire Rimando said in a phone interview that the victims were freed in Barangay Elizalde yesterday.

“They were released around lunchtime,” Rimando, who heads the crisis committee formed to address the incident, said.

He said Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte had negotiated for the release of the surveyors.

Prior to their release, the New People’s Army (NPA) had owned up to the kidnapping of the environment department surveyors and condemned the use of drones, which it described as “indiscriminate weapons of mass genocide.”

Daniel Ibarra, spokesman for the NPA Compostela Valley-Davao Gulf sub-regional command, said the surveyors had undertaken reconnaissance activities and had assisted in the campaign against the revolutionary forces.

The kidnapped surveyors, Ibarra said, are connected to the Sky Eye UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), which was supposedly tapped by the environment department for its greening program.

“The NPA maintains that the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources)-Sky Eye’s anti-logging aerial reconnaissance is merely a pretext to intensify imperialist mining plunder and counter-revolutionary intelligence in Southern Mindanao,” Ibarra said.

“The DENR’s UAV use is far from protecting the environment, but is mainly to defend the interest of the big mining companies that are guilty of destroying and plundering our environment,” he added.

Ibarra said the surveyors would only be released if Sky Eye stops its “surveillance and intelligence activities” in the area.

The kidnap victims were identified as Kendrik Wong, Nico Lasaca, Chris Favila, Jonas Loredo, Tim Sabina and Matthew Cua.

Ibarra, however, said only five persons had been “arrested” by their troops. Cua, said to be one of the owners of Sky Eye, was not in the NPA’s list. – With Edith Regalado, Michelle Zoleta