When cattle rustling is as serious as murder

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet—Stealing your neighbor’s carabao, or cow, is as wicked as rape, murder, homicide, robbery or car theft on the list of major crimes in the Cordillera, according to a report presented to the Cordillera Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC) here on Wednesday.

The report said cattle rustling has been classified as an index crime, which is a category for grave offenses like murder, rape, car theft, robbery, homicide and physical injuries.

Senior Supt. Joseph Adnol, head of the Cordillera police’s detective management division, said police decided to place cattle rustling alongside heavier crimes because it has become too common and damaging to rural Cordillera villages, whose economies rely on cattle and livestock.

Adnol said cattle rustlers are usually fellow villagers themselves.

He said in Alfonso Lista, Ifugao, people “do not report crimes other than cattle rustling.”

“For a common person or a community that does not encounter other crimes [like] kidnapping and murder, but [who would] always [suffer the] theft of livestock, cattle rustling is the talk of the town,” he said.

Index crimes, he said, are grave offenses committed with regularity while nonindex crimes are minor violations of local ordinances.

The number of cattle rustling cases, however, remains small compared to other serious offenses in the first five months of the year. Police listed only six cases of cattle rustling from January to May.

Topping the regional police’s list of index crimes for the period were physical injuries (1,361 cases), theft (1,216 cases), robbery (421 cases), rape (67 cases), murder (64 cases), homicide (41 cases) and car theft (24 cases).

Adnol said six cattle rustlers have been convicted. Ifugao Gov. Eugene Balitang, newly elected RPOC chair, identified the Ifugao town of Aguinaldo as cattle rustling capital in the region.

“Carabaos are a very important part of our agricultural life,” Balitang said. A stolen cow could sell for P20,000-P30,000 each, he said.

“Stealing your neighbor’s carabao is like stealing your neighbor’s dignity or life,” said Jaime Dugao, former barangay captain of Ankileng in Sagada, Mt. Province.

Dugao said cattle theft was rampant from the late 1950s to early 1960s in Sagada and Tadian town, also in Mt. Province.

He said cattle rustling declined in the 1970s because people found jobs during the mining boom in Itogon, Benguet. Desiree Caluza, Inquirer Northern Luzon