BUTUAN CITY, Philippines—The Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Caraga on Friday suspended three Community-Based Forest Management Agreements inside the Anticala-Taguibo watershed area in a bid to obtain the freedom of five forest guards being held hostage since Wednesday.

Edilberto Buiser, DENR director for Caraga, said the suspension, one of the demands of the kidnap group led by Andot Behing, raised their hopes that the remaining five forest guards will be released soon. Two other guards were released a day after the abduction as a goodwill gesture by the kidnappers.

"To facilitate the release of the remaining five personnel, I had granted one of Behing’s six demands, which is the suspension of three Community-Based Forest Agreements being implemented in the Sibagat area,” Buiser told the Inquirer.

The forest management agreements are a project of the DENR, under which people’s organizations or tribal communities are given authoritiy to reforest, rehabilitate and develop upland timber areas for 25 years.

Project awardees supply the bulk of the requirements of wood processing companies and wood based industries in the Caraga region.

On Thursday evening, Behing, a disgruntled Manobo tribal chieftain, freed two of their seven captives identified as Emiliano Gatillo, Jr. and Efren Sabuero, after a day of intense negotiations involving local church and tribal leaders.

"The negotiations were doing well," Buiser said.

He said the grant of one of the abductor’s demands was agreed upon by the crisis committee for the safe and immediate release of his men.

Behing’s other demands include the awarding of ancestral domain titles to Manobos and other indigenous groups in the area and the approval of traditional farming.

"On the regional level only the [forest management agreement] demand can be granted and the rest are up to Secretary (Lito) Atienza," he said.

But a Manobo tribal chieftain, whose project award was among those affected by the suspension, said he will contest the order for being without basis.

Julius Mabandos of the Manobo Iligan Tribal Community Farmers Association also called on Buiser to resign for succumbing to the demands of a “lawless” group, which he accused of being behind extortion and illegal logging activities inside the critical Butuan watershed area.

“Buiser should resign because he was giving in to the demands of a lawless group at the expense of the legitimate tribal people’s organization,” Mabandos said.

He vowed to contest “at all cost the validity of Buiser’s order, which he labeled as detrimental to the upliftment of his impoverished tribesmen.

For his part, Abner Caga, spokesperson of the multi-sectoral Task Force Watershed, urged Buiser to file charges against Behing to dispel reports that the kidnapping was a mere ploy by corrupt environment officials hurt by anti-logging and anti-mining campaigns to protect the watershed.

“Reports are persistent that local DENR officials are in cahoots with illegal loggers in the watershed area. So as to dispel reports of the plot to perpetuate their activities, Buiser must file charges against Behing because they can’t take the law into their own hands,” Caga said.