MORE NEWS, BENGUET

Workers assail LCMC for ‘harassment,’ late wages
BY ALDWIN QUITASOL

MANKAYAN, Benguet – Workers of the Lepanto Consolidated Mining Co. here assailed the firm for “harassment” in “delaying” salaries of its more than 1,400 mineworkers.

The workers said they were thinking of mass action if this practice was not rectified.

But LCMC officials said they cannot pay the workers on time because of the late payment of the gold buyers. The company management also said that they are giving priority in paying the company’s debts.

According to National Federation of Labor Unions regional coordinator James Tulipa, the delay of the mineworkers’ salaries was unfair.

He said that since the Lepanto Rank and File Employees Union-National Mine and Allied Workers Union-International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mines and General Workers’ Union filed a petition for certification election against the incumbent Lepanto Employees Union on Oct. 5, the delay in payment of salaries started.

The workers usually got their salaries every 10 days but this month, these were delayed one to three days.

The Kilusang Mayo Uno criticized the delay as unreasonable and harassment to the workers as they are again entering a collective bargaining agreement through their legitimate union with the management.

Prior to the system of the gold selling, the company had reportedly had a procedure of paying its debts together with giving the wages of its workers.
According to KMU, the company’s production never ceased since the 2005 workers’ strike was lifted.

The company’s budget operation for the year 2007 actually comes from the earnings on the year 2006. LCMCo have retained earnings which includes
accumulated gains from its operations of P1, 096,237,000.

From this figure, the KMU said the company was not fair to the workers and they should be paid accordingly since they are the ones working so hard to give the company such huge gains.

The KMU also denounced the company’s “ungratefulness” to its workers for
passing on the burden of paying the company’s debts.

“The workers have already done their part by digging the gold ores and processing them and run the production,” a NAFLU official said. “The company has also its obligation in giving the workers what is due to them.”


Baguio, Benguet forest covers alarmingly thin
BY DEXTER A SEE

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The forest cover in this vegetable-producing province and Baguio City is not getting any better despite concerted efforts of government and private groups to reverse the deteriorating condition of the environment.

Rhoda Fe Buenavista, ecological enhancement officer of the Jaime V. Ongpin Foundation Inc. said that although trees are becoming thicker in communal watersheds and forests, the whole picture shows that the forest cover is thinning, and that there is a need for dedicated, continuous efforts of the community to protect the remaining tree stands.

The JVOFI is a non-government organization engaged in initiatives to protect and conserve watersheds in Baguio City and La Trinidad, Benguet.

These watersheds include the Busol watershed, Buyog watershed in Baguio and the Alapang, Shilan, Alno, Beckel and Puguis communal watersheds in this capital town.

The NGO has been conducting relocation surveys on the watersheds and preparing an ecological profile to pinpoint the critical areas of the watersheds where environmentalists could concentrate their activities.

Based on the biodiversity profiling done, the flora and fauna in the said watershed and forest are not in good shape because there are now very few of these in the watersheds with fauna in really big trouble.

Of all the animals that used to roam the forests and watersheds, only the wild cats are being seen, the NGO said.

Buenavista said the delineation processes are still going on with the participation of the affected residents, adding that the group is guided by the principle that forests and watersheds are best co-managed by local government units and the residents themselves.

She said that her group would never recommend the ejectment of the thousands of residents living in the watersheds unless a relocation site is made available.
She added, however, the communities in the watersheds must no longer grow so that the residents will not be forced to cut trees and occupy vast forest lands for housing and livelihood purposes.

The JVOFI envisions forests in Baguio and Benguet to look like those of Palawan where anthurium and other flowers grow in the thick forests which provide livelihood for people living in the area.

Environmentalists are supportive of a plan for an environmental component with which a certain percentage of every development project would be segregated for the purpose of watershed rehabilitation and conservation, saying that this must be started immediately on the municipal levels.

They said that mountainous areas such as those in the Cordillera would be prone to landslides and soil erosion if the trees which serve as support for the unstable, fragile mountain slopes are removed.


Inside story Rice leads policemen to Bersamin slay suspects
CAMP DANGWA, Benguet -- A sack of rice led the Cordillera police to the whereabouts of two suspects in the slaying of Abra Rep. Luis Bersamin in Rizal province.

Cordillera police director Chief Supt. Eugene Martin said he sent his men to Sta. Cruz town in Ilocos Sur hoping to catch former La Paz vice mayor Freddie Dupo and his cousin, Sunny Taculao, while visiting their relatives there following the ambush-slaying of Bersamin in front Mt. Carmel church in QUezon City last Dec. 16.

“I sent two teams of crack police operatives to Sta. Cruz town to monitor the suspects’ relatives. They stayed there for several months but Dupo and Taculao and the other suspects failed to show up,” Martin said.

Unknown to Martin, right after the killing of Bersamin, Dupo and Taculao had gone into hiding in Baras, Rizal.

It was in this remote town where they were arrested one after the other last weekend.

In the mountains of Baras town, Dupo and Taculao engaged in kaingin (slash-and-burn farming) and took odd jobs in construction projects to support themselves.

During tactical interrogation, Taculao claimed Dupo received every month a sack of rice and other foodstuff and P10,000 in cash.

Dupo told Taculao that the money and supplies came from their relatives in Sta. Cruz.

All the while, Martin said Dupo was also talking through a cellular phone with Martin and Abra Gov. Eustaquio Bersamin to arrange his surrender.

While in hiding in Rizal, Dupo said he was confident that the Cordillera police would not be able to trace him and Taculao there.

However, Martin said an informant walked into his office in Camp Dangwa here last week of September and told him relatives of the two Bersamin’s slay suspects had been sending food supplies to somebody in Rizal.

Martin called the attention of Supt. Jess Cambay, Cordillera police intelligence chief, and ordered him to look into the fresh information.

“I immediately pulled out my men from Sta. Cruz top verify the new information and luckily we hit pay dirt this time,” Martin said.

Cambay said a nine-member police team headed by Inspector Reynaldo Viloria tailed last October 1 a bus bound for Cubao, Quezon City loaded with a sack of rice addressed to a certain Cesar Buen of Baras, Rizal.

When the bus came to a stop in its terminal in Cubao, a man picked up the sack of rice and laoded it into a passenger jeepney plying the Baras-Cubao route.

The Cordillera policemen continued tailing the sack of rice until it was delivered to a hut in the mountains of Sitio Pinugay at the boundary of Baras town and Antipolo City. The hut turned out to be Buen’s.

After the success of their surveillance, Cambay said his team waited for the issuance of an arrest warrant against Dupo, Taculao and another suspect, Constable Salvador Barbosa, who reportedly died recently due to an illness.

After Judge Lydia Layosa of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court issued an arrest warrant against Dupo and Taculao last week, Cambay said his team tried to serve it on Oct. 19.

“Our team and the suspects met face-to-face. Sensing danger, Dupo transferred his cane to his left and prepared to pull out his handgun. The team withdrew from the area to prevent a big number of casualties because there were a lot of people gathered around Dupo and Taculao at the time,” Cambay said.

Cambay junked the idea of seeking augmentation from the Cordillera police, which was costly, and instead coordinated with the Rizal police for help from the Provincial Mobile Group.

At 4 a.m. last Saturday October 20, Cambay’s men swooped down on the hut and found Taculao, who yielded a caliber .45 automatic pistol, two cell phones and four SIM cards.

When interviewed in Camp Crame, Dupo said he was only in his shorts and barefoot when he saw the approaching policemen. He fled to the mountains.

At nightfall, Dupo said he went to a hut to borrow a T-shirt and a pair of slippers. He said he failed to catch sleep night of Oct. 20, thinking that the police might catch up with him.

Dupo was arrested Sunday at a creek in Lower Kilingan, Pinugay, Baras, when he made the mistake of returning to the hut.

“I was trying to borrow a cell phone to call Gen. Martin so I could surrender peacefully,” said Dupo when asked why he went down the mountain.

Martin said Dupo is also involved in the ambush-slaying of Lap Paz Mayor Israel Mark Bernos last January.