Anti-Illegal Logging Activist Shot in the Philippines

Romeo Pacot is a guy you’ve probably never heard of.

Pacot was the chief operations officer of Task Force Kalikasan, a people’s organization campaigning against illegal logging in the Caraga region of the Philippines.

Romeo Pacot was shot in the head last night near his home and in intensive care in a local hospital. Three men attacked Pacot and then casually walked away to a parked motorcycle(S) and drove off.

Pacot had received death threats before according to police.

Last fall flash floods and landslides which killed 340 persons were blamed on rampant deforestation in the Philippines. Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman told the Sun-Star the powerful storm, which hit the country's east shortly after a typhoon caused so much death and destruction because there was no forest cover to hold mudslides that washed away roads, bridges and submerged whole towns. "The real culprit is really the mud and the landslides," Soliman said. "The rains caused the flash floods, yes, but the soil could not hold up the water in the mountains."

The Sun-Star reported, “A recent US-funded project concluded that the Philippines was losing more than 100,000 hectares (247,100 acres) of forest every year. Other experts say less than 3 percent of the country's primary forest remains intact.”

Earlier this month Philip Agustin, editor and publisher of a Philippines weekly Starline Times Recorder, was killed by a single shot to the back of the head. The shooter in that murder also fled on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice.

What’s the connection?

The day after Agustin’s murder a special edition of Starline Times Recorder, highlighting corruption and illegal logging in the town of Dingalan was scheduled for print. According to the ABS-CBN news Web site Agustin's family told police that his articles about local corruption and official inaction against the illegal logging trade were the likely motives for his murder.

At the time of that murder the Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists Ann Cooper said, "We call on authorities to make Agustin's death the last. The government must apprehend those responsible and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law."
Sources: Sun-Star (Philippines), Philippines Star, YEHEY!News, Committee to Protect Journalists