Engr. Abdul Puengan, of the National Commission on the Indigenous Peoples in Western Mindanao, also issued a similar statement.

Puengan said despite having Subanen leaders on its list of officials, Lupa Pigigetawan Mining Co. Inc. (LPMCI) is not owned by the Subanens.

Lucenio Manda, of the Pigsalabukan Gukom de Bayog and chair of Barangay Conacon, said the ex-military officials also intimidate them by fielding heavily armed personnel under AY76 Security Agency, which they also operate.

“The situation made us sleepless and wary of things to come,” Manda said.

Retired Gen. Alexander Yapching, who runs AY76, denied they were intimidating the Subanens.

He said “all the security personnel assigned at Lupa Pigigetawan are 100-percent Subanens.”

“They were hired to protect their ancestral domain,” he said.

Yapching said the Subanens could not possibly intimidate their own people.

“We have a legitimate operation and licensed personnel and we never harassed anyone,” he said.

Manda said he and his group have been opposing the operation of LPMCI because they knew that it was only being used as a front.

He said Lupa president Absalon Alcorin Jr., a Mandaya from Davao, had initially offered him a share in the mining company, which listed other Subanen leaders as shareholders, but he rejected it.

Manda said when he rejected the offer, Alcorin had told him his bosses were powerful.

“He said that his bosses are with the military and I might regret my decision not to join,” he said. Alcorin could not be reached for comment.

Yapching said he could speak for LPMCI and he could issue assurances that it is owned by the Subanens.

But an LPMCI document, which the Inquirer obtained, showed that one of its owners is Manuel Go, of the Cebu Mining and Management Corp. Cebu Mining has a partnership with the China Metallurgical Group for Mineral Resources and Development.

Manda said Alcorin may have been correct in claiming his bosses were influential.

He said the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) earlier shut down LPMCI’s operation because it violated its exploration permit but early this month, the company operated anew.

He said the company also deployed more armed security personnel. Mayor Leonardo Babasa confirmed the renewed operation of LPMCI and assailed its officials for disrespecting the laws.

“They don’t even have clearance,” he said.

Albert Johann Jacildo, MGB director for Western Mindanao, admitted receiving reports of LPMCI’s renewed operation despite the April 15 cease-and-desist order on actual mining activities.

But he said the MGB could only do so much because LPMCI has a valid special permit for exploration, which was issued by then Environment Secretary Lito Atienza.

Atienza issued the special permit based on the Indigenous People’s Rights Act, Jacildo said.

The law says indigenous communities can explore their ancestral domain for mineral resources, he added. Tito Fiel and Julie Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao

Contrary to their expectations, the socialite said she was warmly accepted by her hosts among the Tausug political leaders, particularly the Sakaluran family, which is engaged in the water transport business. The family even allowed her to use one of their boats to go around the Sulu archipelago.

“We slept on cots, those you’d normally use when you are on board (a ship), and we followed the stars in navigating. Oh! What a star glittering in hope over Muslim Mindanao!” Cojuangco told supporters at Estosan Garden Hotel in Cotabato City.

On May 22, Cojuangco, accompanied by her husband, former Tarlac Rep. Jose Cojuangco Jr., filed her certificate of candidacy for vice governor in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections.

Rich Muslim history

She challenged young Muslims to invest time and effort in further studying their culture and history. “Your place is very rich in history,” she said in Filipino.

Earlier that day, her gubernatorial running mate, former Sultan Kudarat Gov. Pax Mangudadatu, filed his own certificate of candidacy in a long convoy of vehicles carrying his supporters and political allies, all the way from Isulan town in Sultan Kudarat.

Cojuangco took reporters by surprise when she appeared at the restaurant straight from the airport after a flight from Manila and declared that she is running for vice governor.

“What has she done for the ARMM when she is from Tarlac?” the reporters asked.

Cory’s vision

Her husband and the President’s uncle answered: “I and (then President) Cory (Aquino) started all this when we envisioned the ARMM to be a peaceful, development area for the Muslims.”

He considered his wife’s political aspiration “another opportunity” to realize that vision. They are both against a usual political intervention by Malacañang in the ARMM, he said.

During the first ARMM election campaign period and in many regional political events from the late 1980s to the early 1990s during the administration of then Gov. Zacaria Candao, Cojuangco was conspicuously present. She has not sold her house in Awang town in Maguindanao and has established residency there since the Candao administration.

It had been rumored then that she was doing another academic paper—this time, for the National Defense College’s (NDC) graduate program leading to a Master of Arts degree in National Security Administration (MNSA).

Cojuangco’s political ties with the Sakalurans of Sulu have led to a friendship with the family of Pax Mangudadatu, whose daughter is married to now Sultan Kudarat Rep. Raden Sakaluran.

‘Political mockery’

Zamzamin Ampatuan, former chair of the National Anti-Poverty Commission, said Cojuangco’s candidacy might be seen even by nonresidents of the region as the “political mockery” of the ARMM.

Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong, a political ally and fraternity brother of Mangudadatu, described Cojuangco as “good as a person and as a friend.” But he said that if Malacañang had fielded candidates for the top regional posts in case the August elections would push through, certainly it would not be Cojuangco—unless the President would ignore public criticism.

Besides, Datumanong said, both Mangudadatu and Cojuangco come from Maguindanao. Traditionally, he explained, a tandem should be representing at least two provinces in a regional election.

Debates have raged among ARMM political pundits as to which came first—Cojuangco’s NDC security thesis on Muslim Mindanao or the 1988 passage of the Organic Act (Republic Act No. 6734), which created the ARMM?

Some say her MNSA thesis became one of government’s principal references in crafting the autonomous region, which dates back to the framing of the 1987 Constitution in 1986.

Cojuangco herself did not mention anything about the security paper in her speech and answers to reporters’ queries. But a person close to her said the academic paper “came into experimental play during the (ARMM) administration of Candao.”

In a text message to the Inquirer also on Friday, Picardal said he arrived in Aparri, amid heavy rains, around 4:49 p.m.

“Final day of my journey. Pushing forward from Gattaran to Aparri today amid typhoon signal 1,” Picardal said in an earlier text message.

Speaking later to the Inquirer by phone, the 57-year-old Redemptorist priest, who had biked across the country to push for environmental protection and a stop to extrajudicial killings, said he felt relieved to have completed his most challenging endeavor so far.

This time, he was also calling on Malacañang to reconsider its stand on the reproductive health (RH) bill.

“I survived,” he blurted out when the Inquirer contacted him by phone later on Friday.

What made Picardal’s journey tougher was that he suffers from a heart condition that can be fatal.

He was diagnosed with a myocardial ischemia, or angina, which is characterized by the lack of blood flow to the heart.

“It could have been a very scary journey. I was alone. But I’ve been aware of God’s presence,” Picardal said.

He said the journey—which started April 1—also became more difficult because of the heavy downpour and biting cold, he said.

He also had bouts with dehydration and diarrhea.

“Psychologically and spiritually, I have a deeper faith and deeper understanding of myself,” Picardal said.

Also, his advocacy pushed him harder to complete his 2,060-kilometer journey by foot.

“I never thought of stopping and was taking the travel one step at a time. I was really sure I can do it, even though I knew how difficult it was,” Picardal said. Dennis Jay Santos, Inquirer Mindanao

In the ruling dated May 18, 2011, a photocopy of which was obtained by the Inquirer on Friday, the Ombudsman admitted it “relied only on the ex-parte claim” of complainant Expectacion Bautista-Baldeo, a flea market operator in Tiaong, when it ordered the two-month suspension without pay of Umali on Nov. 30, 2010.

The new order signed by Joaquin Salazar, director of the evaluation and investigation office of the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon, and approved by acting Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro, said the complaint against the mayor needed further investigation.

Baldeo alleged in her complaint that Umali closed her flea market inside the town proper without due process. The Ombudsman sided with the complainant and ruled that the mayor abused his power.

Last week, the Department of Interior and Local Government ordered the enforcement of the suspension order. The mayor immediately filed a motion for reconsideration.

The mayor said he ordered the flea market closed for several reasons, among them the sale of unsanitary meat, absence of a permit to operate and pollution.

Onions seized

THE BUREAU of Customs (BOC) on Thursday seized an 80-foot container van with Chinese onions valued at P6.4 million, an official said.

Edmundo Magdaraog, BOC acting district collector at the Port of Davao, said the onions, weighing about 130,000 kilograms, arrived in the country on May 9 and was consigned to Red Jaguar Merchandise.

He said on Thursday, Commissioner Angelito Alvarez ordered the shipment confiscated after it was found that the importer had no permit from the Bureau of Plant and Industry (BPI).

Ramon Miloria, officer in charge of the BPI’s Plant Quarantine Service here, said he recommended that the shipment be sent back to its origin.

But Magdaraog said the BOC would rather have the onions destroyed, with the help of the BPI. Dennis Jay Santos, Inquirer Mindanao

COTABATO CITY

Resilient bank

AMID UNSTABLE peace and order and natural tragedies that threatened this city’s economy, the Rural Bank (RB) of Cotabato remains resilient.

Its founder, Eusebio Tanghal, was even kidnapped in 1982 but it did not stop the growth of the bank, which came into being in 1961.

In 2003, the US Agency for International Development-sponsored Microfinance Access to Banking Services (MABS) program  transformed RB Cotabato into a conduit for lending to conflict-torn areas.

Since the MABS program, RB Cotabato has extended over P300 million in microfinance loans. About 95 percent of the borrowers are Moros.

Just recently, the Bangko Sentral and the Securities and Exchange Commission granted the bank another 50 years in operating authority. Inquirer Mindanao

The MRS is one of eight case studies that Greenpeace presented in its 80-page report titled “Hidden Consequences.” Also under the spotlight are the Yangtze River in China, Chao Phraya in Thailand and Neva in Russia. Four more rivers in America and Europe are presented for their respective cleanup programs.

The MRS (also called the Marilao-Meycauayan-Obando River) starts from the uplands of Rizal, snakes through Caloocan City and flows into Bulacan through the cities of San Jose del Monte and Meycauayan, and the towns of Sta. Maria, Marilao and Obando before it empties to the Manila Bay.

The Bocaue River merges with the river system in Marilao, according to the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Highly polluted

The nonprofit environmental facility, Blacksmith Institute, labeled the MRS as one of the world’s 30 dirtiest rivers in 2008, after confirming that its waters contained “high levels of pollution” from wastes coming from leather tanneries, gold refineries and dumps.

Reviewing Blacksmith’s findings, the Greenpeace report states that pollution has reached the river’s groundwater, and the extent of manganese, zinc, nickel and cadmium there has made it undrinkable. Shellfish and freshwater fish showed evidence of metal contamination, exceeding limits for human consumption in some cases.

Greenpeace found the 10-year Water Quality Management Area program—said to be the first in the country—to be limited.

“However, while this plan covers the cleanup of the existing contamination and waste water treatment for ongoing discharges, it contains very few concrete measures to prevent future contamination by addressing the problem at source and eliminating the actual use of hazardous chemicals,” the report says.

“As the plan stands at the moment, it is questionable whether it will be able to fully deliver on its goal of achieving complete control over the source of the pollution.”

Campaigns

Lormelyn Claudio, EMB director in Central Luzon, said the agency, provincial and local government and several other government offices have joined efforts to conduct information campaign, hold regular cleanup drives, enforce solid waste management and closure of illegal dumpsites and inventory of sources of heavy metals.

The program, she said, needs P10.2 billion, which remained unfunded to date. The EMB, as a secretariat, uses some of the agency’s funds in the meantime. The provincial and local governments share counterpart funds, she said.

The cleanup cost, Greenpeace said, would be massive on the part of the Bulacan government but prohibitive for the national government.

Greenpeace said “authorities are rightly focusing on controlling the sources of pollution, yet their proposed plan will not completely eliminate the use and discharge of hazardous chemicals, such as heavy metals.”

To protect the health and livelihood of the more than one million people living around it, Greenpeace urged the government to set up a proper pollutant disclosure system through which the public could easily access a wide range of pollution data.

Advocates could also use the system to immediately establish a list of hazardous chemicals and create an action plan to reduce, restrict and ultimately eliminate the discharges of toxic chemicals.

Pineapple enzyme

The government hasn’t given up.

In Marilao, Bulacan, a tropical fruit enzyme has been introduced to the MRS by a Japanese firm that  helps in the cleanup.

Minaki Advance Co. Ltd., which is based in Hiroshima, Japan, has been leading the rehabilitation of Marilao River since December 2010.

The firm’s treatment process requires enzyme extracted from the pineapple, said Mitsuo Hirayama, Minaki project engineer. Tonette Orejas, with a report from Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon

“The inclusion of Virgin Mary in a nonreligious event, much more of a fashion event is not proper and wrong.

“Not unless the organizers were permitted by the local parish to have the icon during the event,” Marquez said in a phone interview Friday.

The bishop said the Church-sponsored Flores de Mayo would still be held at the end of the month.

Marquez gave his opinion in the midst of controversy surrounding the inclusion of the float of a revered religious icon at the end of the parade of local beauties in regal costumes, designed by local and Manila-based fashion designers, staged on Monday afternoon along major streets here.

Lea Yabe, secretary of Msgr. Leandro Castro, head of Saint Ferdinand Cathedral, said the Church has nothing to do with the event.

The event, dubbed “Flores de Mayo sa Lucena 2011,” was organized by Lucena fashion designer Rholand Roxas.

According to Roxas, the inclusion of the float of Virgin Mary was requested by one of the event sponsors.

He said he ordered an associate to coordinate with the diocese on the inclusion of the religious icon but he was not aware of the result.

He defended the participation of the religious icon, saying there was no outcry when the float of the Virgin Mary was included in the fashion parade held in the city in May last year.

“That issue (of including the float of the Blessed Virgin in the parade) has been with us for so long,” he said.

In the Facebook page of “taga-LUCENA ako” which has listed members here and abroad, Vladimir Agcaoili Nieto, a resident of Lucena and a noted advocate of cultural preservation, chided the organizer for its wrong concept of staging a religious event which has deep roots in the Filipino tradition.

Nieto noted the absence of lighted candles and praying devotees accompanying the icon, which was only followed by a lyre band of elementary students playing “Love Story” instead of the traditional “Dios Te Salve.”

He noted that the icon, though bedecked with flowers, was at the tail end of the parade next to the grand float of Venus Raj, the 4th runner-up in the Ms Universe pageant last year.

Nieto lamented that the people watching the procession left after Raj’s float passed, making the Blessed Virgin Mary look pitiful.

He maintained that “Flores de Mayo is about venerating and praising her (Virgin Mary)” and that “good traditions should be kept as part of our heritage.”

In the same Facebook page, Felino Tañada, chair of the Lucena City Council for Culture and Arts, explained that the affair was “purely a fashion event sponsored by the Quezon Designers Association of the Philippines and was not meant to be a religious exercise.”

“Flores de Mayo” (Flowers of May) or “Santakrusan” is a much-awaited annual Catholic procession in honor of the Virgin Mary. The religious event also commemorates the search of the Holy Cross by Reyna Elena and her son, the newly converted emperor Constantine.

One of the most colorful May-time festival in the country, Flores de Mayo, was introduced by the Spaniards and has since become part of Filipino traditions.

The participants to the procession—local beauties in Filipiniana-inspired dress with dashing escorts in barong Tagalog—follow a traditional arrangement in the procession with the Reyna Elena at the last and escorted by a Constantíno, traditionally a young boy.

Immediately behind the queen and her little escort is a float bedecked with fresh flowers carrying the image of the Virgin Mary, followed by a band that plays the traditional religious hymn “Dios Te Salve.”

The Malaysian towage firm, contracted to remove the vessel, had decided to unload some 8,000 tons of the coal cargo to easily refloat it, the Coast Guard said.

But the attempt proved to be slow as only about 1,600 tons had so far been transferred to a barge, it said.

The MV Double Prosperity was carrying 66,000 tons of coal from Australia to India when it rammed into the reef.

Gov. Miguel Dominguez said the ship was sailing close to the coast when it hit the coral reef.

Angel Zapatos, provincial legal officer, said late last week, that four experts from the University of the Philippines’ Marine Science conducted an investigation to determine the extent of damage on marine organism.

The UP representatives, Zapatos said, were composed of coral and fish experts.

He said the ship’s owner, Yano Kaiun, also hired the services of a marine expert from Singapore.

He said the assessments were meant to determine the damage to the reef.

He said a special board would conduct a marine inquiry to determine why the international cargo ship deviated from its sea route and rammed into the coral colony.

Aquiles Z. Zonio, Inquirer Mindanao

“We take the act as a direct assault on press freedom as it was obviously designed to prejudice the operation of the radio station by burning down its facilities and by cowing its staff to silence,” they said.

The act “was barbaric because if the perpetrators felt aggrieved by something that was aired over the radio, they should have demanded and sought redress through the proper process instead of burning down the facilities of the vital installation,” they said.

The dzRK-Radyo ng Bayan is the only radio station in Kalinga.

The Kalinga Media Club urged the police to track down the culprits and bring them to justice.

“They should unmask and file the necessary charges against whoever is responsible for the crime at the quickest possible time,” the club said in a statement.

The club members said they believed the attack was aimed at radio announcer Jerome Tabanganay, who, they noted, had been “relentless in his campaign against criminality and corruption in the province.”

“The timing and circumstances of the attempted arson indicate that it might be connected with the resumption of the jueteng operations in Tabuk City,” they said.

Basilio Baluyan, the station manager, said their guard and radio technician were awakened by “sound of something heavy falling on the metal sink” at past 1 a.m. on May 23. When they investigated, there was already fire inside the comfort room and the technician’s quarters, he said.

Baluyan said the two men used water and the fire extinguisher to put out the fire.

Police investigators said the suspects poured gasoline into the two rooms through a window and then ignited it using a bottle with a burning cloth.

The attempted burning came more than a year after Tabanganay was shot and wounded by three men as he entered the radio station for his program. Villamor Visaya Jr., Inquirer Northern Luzon

Emmanuel Isip, DENR regional technical director, said it was the fourth order the agency issued against Musahamat Farms Inc., Highland Agri-Ventures Inc., Panuda Banana Plantation and ABCDR Corp. due to their failure to secure environmental compliance certificates (ECCs).

Kapatagan is part of the Mt. Apo protected area but the DENR said plantations could be allowed in some areas provided that companies secure the necessary requirements.

Isip said this time, the DENR would make sure the companies will comply with the law.

“Imagine, three regional directors have also asked them to secure ECCs or stop operating but they ignored them,” he told councilors during the city council session on Thursday.

Isip said the DENR suspected that the owners of some of the companies were banking on their links with some politicians in ignoring the requirement for ECC.

He did not elaborate on who the owners were and the identities of their political patrons.

Isip said the DENR was determined to enforce the law this time and that the said companies could only resume their plantation activities once they have already secured ECCs.

But Kapatagan village chair Juanito Morales said they would oppose the order because shutting down the plantations would have a negative effect on the village’s economy.

Hundreds of locals work in the plantations, he said.

Vice Mayor Reynaldo Hermosisima said he was backing the DENR order because it only wanted the law upheld. Orlando B. Dinoy, Inquirer Mindanao