PNP beefs up security in Vizcaya mining village

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya — A battalion-sized police contingent has been sent to beef up its initial security force in the tension-filled Kasibu town’s Barangay Didipio here following the killing of the village chief there Thursday, an incident feared could trigger further violence in the mineral-rich remote mountain village.

Meanwhile, a national-based environment group slammed Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Joselito Atienza for “acting like the lawyer” of the foreign mining firm based here instead of safeguarding the interest of the province in its fight to tax the said foreign firm for its quarry operations.

Superintendent Domingo Lucas, officer-in-charge of the provincial police office, said yesterday that the additional troops from the police regional mobile group, was sent to maintain peace and order in the area, whose already volatile situation has been aggravated by Didipio barangay chairman Paul Baguilat’s killing.

“The RMG contingent will  remain in the area as long as necessary to help maintain peace and order there. This is in addition to the 25-man contingent from Quirino province and a bigger contingent from our province who are already there, so that the tension in the area may ease a bit,” Lucas said.

Police, moreover, said they still have no leads on the slaying of Baguilat, who was shot dead by still unknown assailants while on his way home from the village office Thursday evening.

“I cannot make speculations on the matter,” said Lucas, on the killing of Baguilat, who regained the barangay chairmanship in last year’s barangay elections, defeating a known anti-mining rival by a slim margin.

Speculations here pointed to mining as the most likely cause for the killing of Baguilat, 55, a former employee of the mining company, whom the national government has  contracted to undertake the controversial multibillion-peso Didipio Gold-Copper Project.