Negros mayor, 18 others face illegal logging charges

BACOLOD CITY — A mayor, her husband and 17 others are facing criminal charges for alleged illegal cutting of trees in the Negros Occidental town of Don Salvador Benedicto, 42 kilometers east from this city.

Senior state prosecutor Isagani Rabe filed the criminal case against Mayor Cynthia de la Cruz, her husband, former mayor Nehemias de la Cruz, and councilors Vicente Bacordo and David Pontillano, in the Bacolod Regional Trial Court last Tuesday.

Also named respondents were Eden Bacordo, Feliciano Likoan Jr., Vivencio Catalogo, Eleazar Catalogo, Roger Campos, Fernando Campos, Romeo Señeres, Domingo Endico, Efraim Lagos, Blas Bacole Jr. and three John Does.

The respondents were accused of cutting 90,855.56 board feet of lauan and tangile, valued at P2,725,666, from the Northern Negros Forest Reserve in Don Salvador Benedicto town from August 2000 to August 2002, without legal documents required under existing forest laws and regulations.

The court recommended P80,000 bail for each respondent.

Mayor De la Cruz denied the charges and expressed surprise that a criminal complaint had been filed against her and her husband with the preliminary investigation supposedly still underway.