Lawyers of the privately owned Tagum Agricultural Development Co. (Tadeco) on Thursday said a House inquiry into the allegedly questionable land deal between the
government and Tadeco has “drifted far afield and failed to bring home allegations of [any] wrongdoing.”
The Tadeco lawyers issued the statement as the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability had difficulty pursuing the basic charges levelled against Tadeco.
During the fifth hearing held on February 7, Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez, on whose behest the probe was being conducted, presented as witness Engr. Ruben Tacugue who claimed that the joint-venture agreement between Tadeco and the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) covered an excess of 4,000 hectares. Tacugue also testified that Tadeco illegally closed certain public roads within the sprawling banana plantation in Davao del Norte province.
Committee Chairman Rep. Johnny Ty Pimentel of the Second District of Surigao del Sur, thus, ordered the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Engr. Noel Basanes to submit an inventory of public roads and other structures within the Davao Penal Colony (Dapecol).
Pimentel also directed Tacugue to conduct a survey of the Dapecol reservation area despite the testimony of Regional Executive Director Ruth Tawan-Tawan of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) that a survey of the Dapecol land has been previously conducted.
Hence, Tacugue’s survey as ordered would be “extraneous and a waste of valuable time and taxpayers’ money,” the lawyers said.
Meanwhile, a DPWH team led by Basanes conducted an ocular inspection of the alleged public roads within Tadeco, while Tacugue surveyed the Dapecol property as directed by Pimentel.
The Tadeco lawyers led by Nicolas Banga argued that the DPWH team formed the assumption because there is no clear indication that these are not public roads as attested to by Gov. Anthony del Rosario of Davao del Norte and Dapecol Supt. Gerardo Padilla that the BuCor own the property in question, and that there was no right of way established in the area.
Banga clarified that the farm roads in the Dapecol area “were not public roads but for a specific government purpose.”
Nonetheless, the DPWH team dismantled swing beams on a Dapecol farm road in Barangay Tanglaw, Dujali, Davao del Norte.
The DENR sources said that Tacugue simply adopted an earlier survey undertaken in 2012, and 2013, pursuant to House Resolution 1481 issued by the 15th Congress because his latest survey contradicted his earlier statement that there is an excess of 4,000 hectares.
The Tadeco lawyers also questioned the timing of the inquiry, saying their client has been in existence for some 65 years now, contributing significantly to national economic and social developments by providing jobs and religiously paying its tax obligations to the government.