Suspect in Cagayan forester's slay charged

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines – Murder charges have been filed against the suspected gunman in the killing earlier this month of a female forestry specialist of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Cagayan. 

Police said the suspect, Adorable Caligan Jr., who hails from Claveria town, was formally charged for the killing of Melania Dirain, forestry specialist of the DENR’s community environment and natural resources office in Sanchez Mira town. 

A widow, Dirain, whose job also included the monitoring of the transport of illegal logs and other forest products, was attacked by a lone gunman right inside her office on the night of Feb. 7.

Senior Superintendent Mao Aplasca, Cagayan police director, said murder charges have been filed against Caligan before the provincial prosecutor’s office on Tuesday, or two weeks after the killing.   

Dirain’s killing has being linked to her having a hand in the confiscation of thousands of board feet of illegal logs in her jurisdiction, including the recent interception in Ilocos Norte of some 20,000 board feet of illegally sawn lumber reportedly sourced from Cagayan.

Aplasca said Caligan is believed to be merely a gun-for-hire tapped by an illegal logging syndicate to kill Dirain.

Earlier, Benjamin Tumaliuan, DENR regional executive director, said their office had earmarked P250,000 for the gunman’s arrest.

The suspect, according to reports, is a resident of adjoining Claveria town where 42-year-old Dirain also hails from. 

“We are now working out (Caligan’s) arrest and we believe that with his capture we will be able to get an idea who the mastermind in the killing is,” Aplasca said.

“Actually, we are already closing in on the suspected mastermind,” he added.

Aplasca said they were able to file charges against Caligan after a witness positively identified him as the gunman.

Aplasca said information from witnesses as well as the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage, which caught the gunman, were providing them vital leads in the case.

“We are starting to believe that the victim had been set up for a kill, since information indicated that somebody had called her up which made her hurriedly return to her office, even if she was already at home,” Aplasca said.

Saying that his men are now more inclined to believe that the crime was job-related, Aplasca said authorities are now verifying who Dirain was talking to on the phone, especially since she had addressed the other person on the line as “Sir.”

“This means there is a possibility that Dirain knew the mastermind but she was naturally unaware that she was being set up,” he said. 

“We are now requesting the DENR that we be given access to their records so that we could verify more easily those who she had been taking to,” he added.