Head of Surigao antilogging group survives attack

SURIGAO CITY—The head of a group who had accused environment officials of conniving with illegal loggers survived an ambush on Monday by men believed to be guns-for-hire.

Dr. Isidro Olan, executive director of Lovers of Nature Foundation Inc. (LNFI), suffered a bullet wound in the chest after the gunmen fired at him on a road some 200 meters from his house in Barangay Puyat, Carmen, Surigao del Sur, police said.

Olan’s wife, who was aboard his Toyota Fortuner when the attack occurred, was not hurt, said Chito Trillanes, an official of the Social Action Center in the CarCanMadCarLan (Carrascal, Madrid, Carmen and Lanuza towns).

The center is a Church-backed group which, like Olan’s, is vocal against illegal logging in the province.

Quoting police, Trillanes said the assailants blocked the road leading to Olan’s house, forcing Olan to disembark from his car and make him an easier target.

Roel Aguillon, an official of Surigao Development Corp., said Olan was armed with a .45 cal. pistol and was apparently able to fire back, forcing the suspects to withdraw.

Senior Insp. Dominador Plaza, police chief of Carmen town, said Olan’s involvement in the war on logging could be a motive for the attack.

Trillanes said he was sure “big-time illegal logging financiers” were behind the attack on Olan.

Olan, according to Trillanes, declined a police offer to secure him several weeks before the attack “because he did not want to bother anyone.”

Trillanes identified the Boboy Loyola Group as the one that could be behind the attack. The group’s members are from Gacup, a village known as an illegal-logging haven, said Trillanes.

In an Inquirer story last September, Olan alleged that illegal loggers flourish in Surigao del Sur because of protection and help from corrupt officials from the local government and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

“Illegal logging prevails because they are able to acquire falsified documents facilitated by crooks in the DENR,” a Social Action Center press release quoted him as saying. Danilo Adorador III, Inquirer Mindanao