Banana exporter Tagum Agricultural Development Co. said the congressional inquiry into the alleged questionable land deal between the government and the privately-owned company now faces a blank wall.
Tadeco lawyers made the statement as the House committee on good government and public accountability had difficulty pursuing basic charges against the company owned by the family of Davao del Norte Rep. Antonio Floirendo Jr.
Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, who initiated the probe, presented during the fifth hearing on Feb. 7 engineer Ruben Tacugue as witness who claimed that the joint venture agreement between Tadeco and the Bureau of Corrections 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.
Tadeco lawyers said Tacugue simply adopted an earlier survey in 2012-2013 pursuant to House Resolution No. 1481 issued by 15th Congress because his latest survey contradicted his earlier statement.
House committee chair Rep. Johnny Ty Pimentel ordered the Department of Public Works and Highways-Davao del Norte district engineer Noel Basanes to submit an inventory of public roads and other structures within the Davao Penal Colony.
Pimentel also ordered 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 that a survey of the Dapecol land had been previously conducted.
Observers said another survey of the Dapecol property as ordered by Pimentel would be extraneous and a waste of valuable time and taxpayers’ money.
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.
Tadeco lawyers said the DPWH just assumed that the roads within Dapecol are public roads. The DPWH team then dismantled swing beams located on a Dapecol farm road in Barangay Tanglaw, Dujali, Davao del Norte.
“They just assumed this because there is no clear indication that these are not public roads because according to Gov. Anthony Del Rosario of Davao del Norte and Dapecol Superintendent Gerardo Padilla that it is BuCor property and there is no right of way established thereon,” the lawyers said.
Tadeco legal counsels also questioned the timing of the inquiry, saying their client has been in existence for 65 years now, “contributing significantly to national economic and social developments by providing jobs and religiously paying taxes to the government.”
Observers expressed fear that with the House probe, certain quarters with ulterior motives were out to take over the lucrative banana industry.