Paje thanks Duterte for 5 men

Environment Secretary Ramon J. P. Paje. AFP FILE PHOTO

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje on Tuesday thanked Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte for negotiating the release of five contractors of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) who were abducted by armed men on Friday.

“On behalf of the DENR, our sincerest thanks to Mayor Duterte for his help in freeing the Skyeye personnel without any condition,” Paje said in a news release.

The victims were reportedly abducted by armed men on Friday in Maco, Compostela Valley province.

The communist New People’s Army (NPA) on Monday reportedly claimed responsibility for the abduction of the contractors, accusing them of conducting aerial reconnaissance on its territory using a drone.

NPA ComVal-Davao subregional command spokesperson Daniel Ibarra, in a statement emailed to the Inquirer on Monday, said the men were captured for bringing in “surveillance gadgets” and undertaking reconnaissance on NPA bases.

Four of the five victims were employees of Skyeye, a contractor of the DENR conducting an audit of the National Greening Program (NGP) plantations using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, Paje said.

He identified the Skyeye employees as Kendrick Wong, Chris Favila, Tim Sabino and Nico Lasaca. Wong was the manager and leader of the Skyeye UAV services team, while Favila, Sabino and Lasaca were team members. Also released was Jonas Loredo, driver of the Maria Ave car rental service.

Paje stressed that the agency has been using the state-of-art technology for no other reason than to ensure transparency in the NGP. “Using this technology will prevent the occurrence of ghost sites/projects and ensure that the investment of government will be protected. It would also ensure accountability of DENR officials on the field,” Paje said.

“It was just a misunderstanding,” one of the four surveyors told the Inquirer as they caught up with Duterte immediately after their release.

Still shaken from their ordeal, the four refused to issue any statement.

Marcus Joselin Fragada, DENR regional director, said he was very happy with the release of the four. “I’m happy for their release. They were in Compostela Valley to make a survey of the government’s national greening plantation. They did not have any other intent in the area,” Fragada told reporters.

Duterte, who negotiated with the NPA to let the captives return home, welcomed the four inside the Holcim plant, where the mayor attended the burning of the cocaine found inside a Maersk container this year.

“Their order is not to talk to the media, so I hope you will understand what they’ve gone through,” Duterte said. Both Fragada and the four Skyeye contractors still kept mum about the drones and other surveillance gadgets in the hands of the NPA.

“The motives of Skyeye’s reconnaissance are suspicious, considering that Maco is not a hotspot for logging as its forests are largely denuded and its mountains mainly mineral-rich. It would appear that Skyeye is mainly protecting if not linked toward the big mining operations in Maco and mountain boundaries of Pantukan and Mabini, which are areas under the control of foreign large-scale mining concessionaires Apex Mining and St. Augustine Mining Corp.,” Ibarra said. Reports from DJ Yap in Manila, and Germelina Lacorte and Karlos Manlupig, Inquirer Mindanao