Laguna lake authority head goes on leave

MANILA, Philippines – The head of the Laguna Lake Development Authority has gone on leave for 60 days in the wake of allegations he tried to extort money from a fishpen operator.

LLDA General Manager Rodrigo Cabrera, who described the allegations against him as baseless claims, said his leave of absence was intended to give the Office of the President a free hand to conduct a “fair and unprejudiced investigation.”

“In line with the President’s ‘Matuwid na Landas’ mandate, I believe that distancing myself from the investigation is the right and honorable thing to do so that only the truth will prevail; free from emotion nor opinion,” Cabrera said in a brief statement.

Cabrera said he wanted to assure President Benigno Aquino III and the public that he would submit himself to the law in order to preserve and protect the LLDA’s credibility and integrity.

The allegations against Cabrera came from a certain Charlie Tan, who has been described as the owner and operator of fishpens on Laguna de Bay, popularly referred to as Laguna Lake.

Tan alleged that Cabrera and other LLDA officials had tried to extort P300,000 from him in exchange for approving his request to transfer the location of his fishpens.

Cabrera denied Tan’s claims and described the fishpen owner as an illegal operator on the Laguna Lake, the country’s largest freshwater lake.

But the LLDA chief also said that he has asked a committee to look into Tan’s allegations that the agency’s executives had tried to extort money from him.

The LLDA is tasked to keep a close watch on the lake to prevent its pollution, which could lead to environmental disasters such as the recent fish kills in Taal Lake and the coast of Anda and Bolinao municplaities in Pangasinan.

The fishkills were attributed to the overcrowding of fishpens and the attendant pollution of surrounding waters that depleted dissolved oxygen in the water and led to the death of tens of thousands of fish.