The Environment Report

MANILA, Philippines -- Audy Angchangco wanted so much to become a law enforcer that he would sometimes run after snatchers and petty thieves with an unlicensed gun in hand, friends recalled.

He fulfilled his dream, joining the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) as a special investigator and going after illegal logging syndicates and poachers. He was relentless. He was so passionate in carrying out his duties it cost him his life.
On April 22, Earth Day, a man riding a motorcycle shot the 42-year-old Angchangco 11 times as he stepped outside his house in Lucena City to see what the whether was like.

On Tuesday, Angchangco was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery) in Fort Bonifacio and was accorded full military honors -- the first environmentalist to be given such tribute.

His wife Helen and their children all wore white as they marched with family, friends and officials of DENR towards Audy’s final resting place, just a few meters from the grave of National Artist NVM Gonzales.

During the necrological service earlier, friends recalled his dedication to his vision and his job.

"He really wanted to be a law enforcer," said forester Jose Elmer Bacos. "Many times, he went after small-time crooks with an unlicensed firearm," he said.

As a DENR investigator in Quezon he was up early in the morning and waited at the riverbanks for the so-called “hot logs” to float from upstream.

“It was the first time that I worked with him, and I thought he was just trying to impress me,” said a colleague, Dennis Guerrero.

At around 10 a.m. that day in July last year, they had intercepted more than their usual number of hot logs. Guerrero was ready to pack up and rest, but was startled when Angchangco piped up, “Attorney, there’s still one more. Why don’t we wait for it?”

“I thought he just wanted to show off at that time. But Audy is not like that. He’s very hardworking,” Guerrero said.

Just before his murder, Angchangco was working to clamp down on illegal loggers operating in Agusan province.

He was part of the team that implemented the successful “Oplan Baykuran” last year in the Quezon and Rizal portions of the Southern Sierra Madre.

“Oplan Baykuran” was a massive government anti-illegal logging project last year in the Southern Sierra Madre, which resulted in the confiscation of illegally-cut logs and cutting paraphernalia worth millions of pesos.

Guerrero described his friend and colleague as the generous fellow with the “smiling eyes.”

“He was what I call a happy worker. He was happy doing his work because he was happy with his work,” Asis Perez of Tanggol Kalikasan fondly remembered.

“I would sometimes kid him, are you really an agent or a cook? Because he was happy doing whatever job was given him, even if was in the kitchen,” Perez said.

His sister Rose said she had pleaded with her brother not to continue his job, fearing for his safety.

“But he told me, ‘it is a commitment to my work.’ He lives his principles. That’s the way he is,” she said.

Not even his birthday would stop him from reporting to work. Guerrero recalled that on the eve of Angchangco’s birthday, his office received information of hot logs floating down the river and proceeded to investigate it.

Angchangco took his job so seriously that he was very sensitive if he had the slightest inkling that his superiors doubted him.

“If he is unable to apprehend or intercept hot logs, he feels bad. He doesn’t want his boss to think that he is in cahoots with the syndicate,” said Bacos.

Through Angchangco’s efforts, his office was able to seize more than 34,000 hot logs in the Sierra Madre area.

“He did not want to give illegal loggers a chance to rest and recover. He was a key figure and one of our most productive special investigators,” DENR secretary Angelo Reyes said.

Reyes said the murder was meant to scare off his men, but he added "we are not and will never be intimidated."

DENR Undersecretary Roy Kyamko said several environmental groups were thinking of putting up a foundation to continue what Angchangco had fought so hard for.

He added that the World Wildlife Fund had also pledged P50,000 for Angchangco’s children to continue their schooling.

“How ironic that an environmental law enforcer became an environmental hero on that day which we have dedicated to the Earth,” Kyamko lamented, referring to Earth Day.

But for Bacos, Angchangco never dreamed of being called a hero of the earth from which he came.

“It was not his dream. He just wanted to be a law enforcer," he said. With reports from Hershey D. Homol and Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon