Life and death
By Carlos Isagani Zarate
Inquirer News Service

IT may not be a bad omen to the political career of Vice President Noli de Castro, but the death early this month of his "adopted" namesake, Philippine eagle "Kabayan," illustrates the ironic yet grim reality when modernization and conservation clash.

Eagle Kabayan, the first eagle (in Asia) bred in captivity, met death last Jan. 8 after being electrocuted on an electric post inside the forest reserve of the Mt. Apo Natural Park. The circumstances surrounding Kabayan's death baffled experts at the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF), which runs a breeding center located in the watershed area of Malagos in Davao City.

PEF studies showed that wild Philippine eagles wander around the forests-now "host" to a network of high-voltage transmission towers and power lines-without meeting an accident. While the two-year-old Kabayan was "captive-bred," the PEF said it was unusual for the eagle to perch on an electrical post: Kabayan was among the eagles raised in an isolated forest environment.

The release of Kabayan on Earth Day, April 22, 2004 was aimed to test the survival capacity of captive-bred eagles in the wilderness. The experimental release was touted as a milestone not only in the effort to arrest the feared extinction of the country's national bird but also in the overall environmental conservation program. Ironically, Kabayan was released inside the forest reserve of the Philippine National Oil Co., which has a geothermal plant in the area.

"This is a difficult time but we remain committed to seeing Philippine eagles roam freely in the wild for generations to come. We shall keep improving our programs and experimental releases to the best of our ability, this isolated event notwithstanding. We continue to believe in the value of protecting our natural resources not just for preservation's sake, but for the sake of all who rely on this planet for our needs," the PEF said later in a statement.

Kabayan's death nearly overshadowed the "birthday" anniversary of eagle Pag-asa, the first Philippine eagle conceived in captivity through artificial insemination and hatched on Jan. 15, 1992. Just like Kabayan's celebrated release to the wilderness, Pag-asa's birth was touted both as a milestone and a test of how serious we are in saving our country's remaining and fast-dwindling natural resources.

Thirteen years after Pag-asa's birth, all we can see is the continuing destruction of the eagle's natural habitat.

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Nowadays, many Davaoeños envy Cebu. It is not only because President Macapagal-Arroyo loves to visit the place. It is also because of the special attention she has devoted to Cebu. Following reports on the recent spate of summary, vigilante-type killings of crime suspects in the metropolis, she immediately ordered authorities to investigate and prosecute those involved. Some senators followed suit, condemning the killings as a sign of the breakdown of law and order.

But Davaoeños have yet to hear the President or senators expressing as much concern about the spate of summary executions in Davao City and other parts of Southern Mindanao which started in 2001 and has since claimed more than 200 lives. President Arroyo cannot feign ignorance about these killings. Two years ago, a group of concerned citizens and human rights advocates even requested no less than Davao Archbishop Fernando Capalla, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, to hand-carry to the President a petition for the investigation of the killings in the Davao region.

So far this year, since New Year's Day, in Davao City alone, 38 people-including women and minors-have been executed by motorcycle-riding gunmen. The media have attributed all the "hits" to the so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS). But, ranking police authorities in the region insist that there is no such vigilante group like the DDS that exists!

"It's a turf war among drug syndicates," they say, apparently conditioning the minds of residents to brace for more killings to come. If they are to be believed, it means that drug syndicates thrive in Davao City, despite all the support Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has been giving the police. Not only that, it appears that these syndicates can wage with impunity their murderous "turf war" in broad daylight with the local police just watching in the sidelines to count the dead later.

Still, whether the hits are made by vigilantes or by guns-for-hire, the police authorities in Southern Mindanao should be held liable for dereliction of duty; until now not a single summary execution case has been solved. An alarmed senior lawyer in Davao commented that the only way for the killings to stop is to do an "old-fashioned police work." How can these killings be stopped if we keep on blaming the mayor while the police fail or choose not to do their jobs, he said.

The police failure is probably what also exasperated Antonio Valenzuela, the deputy ombudsman for Mindanao, who is among the officials critical of the summary killings. Last week, Valenzuela formally requested National Bureau of Investigation director Reynaldo Wycoco to send to Davao a crack NBI team that will investigate the killings and, possibly, put a stop to the rampage. "We are turning into a killing field," said Valenzuela, himself a former NBI agent. He is doubtless right. And, probably it is high time, too, for Ms Arroyo to also step in. That is, if she's as concerned with Davao and the other places as she is with Cebu.

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