Criminal and administrative complaints have been filed against Mayor Ramon C. Oñate of Palompon town in Leyte and three other persons before the Office of the Ombudsman (OMB) for their alleged "environmental transgressions" in 2017 that reportedly favored the business interest of the mayor.
Also named in the complaints were former municipal planning and development coordinator and now consultant Isagani A. Jaena, former forest ranger and now contract of service worker Terence S. Osmeña, and former municipal and environment resource officer (MENRO) Raoul T. Bacalla.
The complaints were filed last Oct. 18 by Palompon resident Henry I. Encarnacion who wanted them charged criminally with graft. In the case of Oñate, Encarnacion wanted the mayor also charged with violations of the Revised Forestry Code, the Expanded NIPAS Act, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act, and the Water Code of the Philippines.
On the administrative complaint, Encarnacion claimed that Oñate's actions constituted grave misconduct and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.
The complaints stated that those charged initiated the updating and passing of the "defective" Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) even without the approved Forest Land Use Plan (FLUP).
Barangay San Joaquin was even erroneously classified as an Industrial Zone, which Encarnacion alleged was done to accommodate Oñate's business interest in DBSN Farms and Agriventures Corporation in Lot No. 5143 of the said barangay.
Citing the CLUP from 2003 to 2013, Encarnacion alleged that the land use of Barangays Rizal, Taberna, Lat-osan, Cambacbac, and San Joaquin was timberland. However, he claimed that a reportedly new altered map covered some communities from the municipality of Villaba, the barangays of Sabang, Tinabilan, San Isidro, San Miguel, Tinago, Liberty and Santiago, Tinubdan, Himarco, Masala and Lomonon, which are all of the municipality of Palompon. The barangays, he alleged, are actually outside the coverage of Palompon Watershed Forest Reserve (PWFR).
Only barangays San Joaquin, Tambis, Cambacbac, and Mabini are within Palompon, he said. "The altered maps run counter to the concept of watershed in that it is defined not by political boundaries but the natural characteristics and physical features," he alleged.
"As a consequence, the land areas situated in Barangay San Joaquin and other barangays that were originally part of the PWFR were declared as Industrial Zone," he also alleged.
When ownership of Lot 5413 was finally transferred to DBSN in 2018, Encarnacion claimed that the property was subdivided into two parcels of land and issued with new Tax Declarations with "astronomically high land valuations."
"From the sequence of events..., it is as clear as daylight that despite prior knowledge of the facts that said barangays (including barangay San Joaquin) were classified as timberland and originally formed part of the PWFR, Oñate, being the local chief executive of the municipality... initiated, through his MPDO Jaena and in connivance with Bacalla... the updating of the said 2018 to 2027 CLUP without the required Forest Land Use Plan (FLUP) and where the land use of barangay San Joaquin was conveniently and erroneously classified as Industrial Zone to accommodate his business interest at Lot No. 5143 in the said barangay," the complaints stated.
"By misrepresenting that Lot 5143 is located within an industrial zone, deliberately disregarding the environmental transgressions and refusing to take appropriate actions, Mayor Oñate, Jaena, Bacalla and Osmeña exhibited manifest partiality and extended undue favors to Zachary Farms and DBSN Breeder Farms at Barangay San Joaquin, Palompon," the complaints also stated.