Gunman in Apayao forest ranger’s slay still unidentified

LUNA, Apayao– Police have yet to identify the gunman who shot dead a forest ranger while he was manning a checkpoint in a remote village here on July 9.

Police said the colleagues of forest ranger Kennedy Eber Bayani had just taken their dinner when they heard a gunshot and Bayani shouting “Naalaakon, manong (I was hit, manong).”

Bayani did not reach the hospital alive.

Bayani had been a forest ranger since 1998. On Feb. 19 last year, he suffered injuries when part of the lumber he and his colleagues seized in Luna town fell on him, said Abner Villanueva, spokesman of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in the Cordillera Administrative Region.

DENR-Cordillera executive director Clarence Baguilat appealed to their central office and other agencies to help solve Bayani’s killing.

Baguilat said they have intensified their forest protection efforts in line with the directive of new DENR Secretary Ramon J.P. Paje to put a stop to illegal logging nationwide in 30 days.

The regional DENR earlier had put up several checkpoints in identified illegal logging hot spots in the Cordillera,