MANILA, Philippines—A former mayor and an administrator of General Nakar town in Quezon province, who are facing 221 counts of usurpation of authority in connection with illegal logging operations, have asked the Sandiganbayan for a reinvestigation of their case.

In a seven-page motion, former Mayor Leovegildo Ruzol and former administrator Guillermo Sabiduria said the charges filed against them by the Office of the Ombudsman were “baseless, groundless and exploding with political undertones.”

The two former officials were accused of issuing allegedly spurious permits to transport illegally cut logs from protected ecological areas and government lands in the town.

In December 2004, flash floods and landslides hit Nakar and Infanta when two typhoons struck northern Quezon, leaving more than 1,000 people killed and missing.

The tragedy was blamed on excessive illegal logging in the province.

In asking for a reinvestigation of the case, Ruzol said he had acted within his power as mayor and did not assume any authority belonging to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Both accused claimed that the investigating prosecutor of the Office of the Ombudsman committed “grave and serious error” when the latter failed to take into consideration certain provisions of the Local Government Code of 1991.

They pointed out that under the law, the environmental powers were no longer exclusive to the DENR as they had already been devolved to local governments.

“The investigating Ombudsman prosecutor ought to have known that the DENR does not issue any kind of transport permit for logs or timber and it does not exercise such an authority on its own,” they stated in their motion.

They also said that the 221 cases filed against them were anchored on “flimsy and unfounded” conclusion of the law and that the prosecution would fail to establish their guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

The cases, they claimed, would only clog the docket of the Sandiganbayan.