Anti-landfill Tarlac mayor cries ‘political harassment’

CAPAS, Tarlac — After having successfully rallied his constituents and gained the backing of the Tarlac Mayors’ League against the controversial multimillion-dollar, 100-hectare sanitary landfill project of the Clark Development Corp. (CDC), this town’s mayor is now crying "political harassment."

"Since I took a principled stand against this environmentally destructive project, I have been politically harassed on all fronts," said Mayor Rey Catacutan.

"The political persecution being inflicted on me has not even spared some of our pro-environment and pro-people projects," he added.

He described his detractors as "powerful and influential in Tarlac’s political battlefield."

According to Catacutan, the "first round of harassment" occurred when the regional office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) issued a notice of violation last January for the newly opened ecological solid waste management and recycling project of this town in Barangay O’Donnell.

The project, being managed by a cooperative, lacked an environmental compliance certificate (ECC), the DENR regional office said.

"I am quite surprised that the DENR regional office issued the notice of violation despite the fact that this environmentally sound project is being implemented in coordination with its provincial office," Catacutan said.

The notice, however, was later recalled by the DENR regional office itself after it found out that the waste management project had complied with all the documentary requirements for an ECC.

Employing waste segregation, recycling and composting, the facility produces organic fertilizer out of biodegradable wastes, which the Department of Agriculture had certified as cost-effective for agricultural use.

Catacutan said the alleged harassment on him did not stop there.

He said "pro-landfill political forces" are now reportedly turning the table on him in at least two illegal logging cases in this town.

The first case, he said, involved an incident last September when the municipal government’s Task Force Kaayusan and the local police recovered hundreds of flitches of illegally cut lumber in Barangay O’Donnell.

While the flitches were being transported to the town hall, a certain Avelino Bacallo intercepted them, demanding explanation for the haul. Bacallo later turned out to be a member of Gov. Jose Yap Sr.’s Task Force Kalikasan.

When police made an inventory of the seized forest products, Catacutan said Bacallo "retreated from the scene." The mayor then filed a complaint against Bacallo for "oppressive and gross misconduct."

A week later, stories about Catacutan allegedly being involved in illegal logging activities came out in local papers. No charges, however, were filed against him.

"This issue is now being revived, and I was told that charges will be finally filed against me despite the glaring fact that my office and the police were merely implementing the law," he said.

In yet another issue, Catacutan said he is now also being implicated in an illegal logging case filed against a certain Eufemio Vistan of Barangay Sta. Juliana here.

"I am completely unaware of this case and I don’t even personally know this Vistan," he said.