Beware of CamSur gov’s diversionary tactic

As the barangay captain of Barangay Gata  in Caramoan, Camarines Sur, allow me to set the record straight regarding Conrado Banal’s misleading July 3 column on the gruesome killing of four of my constituents last March 22.

The police have already charged the men tagged behind the cold-blooded murder. They have been identified as members of Camarines Sur Gov. Luis Miguel “Migz” Villafuerte’s Sagip Kalikasan task force.

Because of this incident, the National Police Commission has suspended Villafuerte’s supervisory control over the local police to ensure that the victims are given justice, without anyone interfering with the investigation to determine who ordered the killings. Napolcom’s action shows the national government’s loss of confidence in Villafuerte.

Let me stress that generations of Barangay Gata residents have been engaged in small mining activities in Caramoan since World War II (long before Villafuerte was born), inflicting no harm or injury on the environment. If our mining were harmful as claimed, Caramoan would not be the ecological attraction that it is today.

To me, the imagined environmental despoliation script being peddled by the Villafuertes to the media is just a cover story for the murder of the Gata 4, the blatant abuse of the governor’s powers and the naked land grab being perpetrated by Sagip Kalikasan men who themselves want to mine.

Villafuerte is clearly cut from the same cloth as his father, former governor and losing congressional candidate LRay Villafuerte, who blames every misfortune of his own doing on former Deputy Speaker Arnulfo Fuentebella and the Partido District Administration (PDA).

Facing possible criminal charges over the killings, Migz has chosen to divert the issues away from himself by rehashing his father’s already discredited allegations against the Fuentebellas and the PDA. LRay, too, resorted to that when the Sandiganbayan issued a warrant for his arrest over corruption charges.

LRay and Migz should be man enough to squarely face the issues against them instead of resorting to squid tactics, with the PDA and the Fuentebellas as their favorite punching bags.

—MERCY SUENO,

barangay captain, Barangay Gata, Caramoan, Camarines Sur