ZAMBOANGA CITY—One of the two suspects arrested for the Sept. 4 ambush of a tribal chieftain that killed the tribal leader’s son worked for a security agency that has been guarding a small-scale mining firm, whose operations in a Zamboanga del Sur town are being questioned.
Timuay Lucencio Manda, a leader of the Subanen tribe, said suspect Marlon Luao was a member of AY76 Security Agency, which was hired by the mining firm Lupah Pigegitawan Mining Corp. to guard its operations in Bayog, Zamboanga del Sur.
The security agency is owned by Alexander Yapching, a retired brigadier general.
The other suspect, Coloy Entag, is a relative of Luao, according to Manda, whose 11-year-old son, Jordan, was killed during the ambush.
Manda, who is at the forefront of the fight for ancestral domain of his tribespeople, was driving his son to school when five to eight armed men fired at him. He suffered a bullet wound in the back, but his son suffered fatal gunshot wounds that led to his death.
Tension
Tension flared up last year between Manda’s Pigsalabukan Gukom Di Bayog and Lupah Pigegatawan Mining Corp. after Lupah employed the services of AY76 Security Agency.
AY76 owner, Yapching, in a phone interview, confirmed that Luao worked for his security agency but was discharged two years ago for indiscriminate firing.
“We discharged him for indiscriminate firing while he was assigned in Cebu,” Yapching said.
Manda, on the other hand, said he was thankful that the suspects have been arrested as he sees no reason for them to attack him.
“I know them, but I do not know why they did it. Let’s just wait for them to talk about why they did it,” Manda said.
Chief Supt. Napoleon Estilles, police chief for Western Mindanao, said police were also looking into personal grudge as motive for the ambush.
Estilles said murder and frustrated murder cases were filed against Luao and Entag at the provincial prosecutor’s office.
Illegal mining
In a previous statement, Manda sought to clarify reports linking the attack on him to his fight against mining.
Manda said he was not against mining, but illegal mining.
A group of small-scale miners, allegedly funded by Chinese-Filipino businessmen, recently applied for a declaration of their area of operations in Zamboanga del Sur as reserved for small-scale mining operations.
The provincial mining regulatory board, however, rejected the application, expressing fears of massive environmental destruction without regulation in the mining area.
Also, the area applied for is already covered by a Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) issued to a Canadian mining firm, one of the biggest in the world. Current mining laws, and the latest executive order on mining issued by President Aquino, prohibit the issuance of mining permits in areas that are already covered by a MPSA. Julie S. Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao