MALAYBALAY CITY (BukidnonNews.Net/12 October 2024)— Bukidnon is expected to commemorate the 33rd death anniversary of slain priest-forester and environmental hero Fr. Nerylito Satur this Oct. 14.
Both government and church sources said there will be events to commemorate this year.
“This Ordinance shall be implemented as a working holiday and observed by the provincial and national government offices and the twenty (20) municipalities and two (2) component cities and by other public and private institutions in the Province of Bukidnon,” says a portion of Provincial Ordinance No. 2004-06R- 9th SP, as quoted in a social media post on October 12, 2024 by Fr. Reynaldo D. Raluto, parish priest of the Jesus Nazareno Parish in Libon and head of the Diocesan Integral Ecology Ministry.
October 14 was to be “A day for Bukidnon Environment, which recognizes the extraordinary and good deed of one person who dedicated his life for the protection and conservation of Bukidnon environment,” a portion of the explanatory note of the ordinance said.
The ordinance provided that among the basic activities for the observance of Fr. Neri Satur Day includes tree planting activities in the areas properly designated by the local government units concerned and religious rites or ceremonies in commemoration of the priest’s death.
A Bukidnon Environment and Natural Resources Office source said they are joining a tree planting event organized by the City Government of Valencia on Oct. 14. No memorandum was issued about the matter as of Oct. 11, another source told BukidnonNews.Net via SMS.
Fr. Raluto told BukidnonNews.Net that there will be no diocesan-wide observance but parish-based events instead, as has been the practice since 2022.
In his parish, Fr. Raluto shared that they are holding a tree planting activity and celebrating the Holy Mass in Brgy. Pongol with the theme: “To Hope and Act with Creation.” The tree planting starts at 7:30a.m. followed by the mass at 9:00a.m.
Fr. Jonathan Tianero, station director of DXDB-Radyo Bandilyo, said the event in Malaybalay City will be done in the Laudatu Si Tree Park in Kibalabag, Malaybalay City. A similar event, he added, will also take place in Guinoyuran, Valencia City, where Fr. Satur was parish priest when he was slain.
Who was Fr. Nerylito Satur?
Fr. Satur was the second of seven children of farmer Emeterio Satur and Felicitas Dazo. He began his studies at the Matonggao Elementary School and finished at the Linamon Central School in Linamon, Lanao del Norte.
His family moved to Bukidnon amid the bloody struggle between the Ilaga and the Barracudas.
After graduating from the Pangantucan Catholic High School he was admitted to the Pope John XXIII College Seminary in Malaybalay and finished his studies for priesthood at the REMASE Seminary in Davao City.
Based on an article by Fr. Raluto in MindaNews in October 2020, Fr. Nery Lito Satur grew up in the town of Pangantucan, Bukidnon where he was ordained to the priesthood in 1989. He was then assigned as assistant parish priest of San Agustin parish in Valencia (not yet a city at that time), Bukidnon. In March 1991, Fr. Neri became the parish priest of the Immaculate Conception Parish of Guinoyoran, a barrio of Valencia, Bukidnon. At that time, Guinoyoran was a violence-prone parish owing to the presence of New People’s Army (NPA) and suspected criminals. There were also middle-sized loggers operating in the area.
He added that as one of the deputized priest-foresters, Fr. Neri was a zealous implementor of the logging moratorium order as shown in the number of confiscations he has done. It was reported, for instance, that he, together with other authorities, confiscated a number of flitches and lumber near the Pulangi bridge in Valencia on February 13 and 14, 1991. He also confiscated 2,492 board feet of illegally cut wood on June 26, 1991 in downtown Valencia.
Then, together with Fr. Loloy Sajelan and Pfc. Norberto Non, he intercepted wood being ferried out to Guinoyoran on July 14, 1991. Lastly, he and a DENR wood scaler confiscated unclaimed lumber in the Valencia area on August 2, 1991. Within a period of six months, Fr. Neri was able to confiscate and intercept a total of 6,602.93 board feet, which were deposited at the Valencia Municipal Hall and put under the custody of Lt. Enrique Pinaso, Fr. Raluto added, quoting sources.
Fr. Raluto quoted the book of then Malaybalay Bishop Gaudencio Rosales and other sources, that the Bukidnon clergy’s option to struggle for ecology angered those who were benefiting from the logging business. They were increasingly getting suspicious of the law enforcers’ capacity to guard the remaining forests of Bukidnon, as they discovered that military personnel had staked a claim over many of their intercepted logs. Thus, at the height of the clergy’s implementation of the logging moratorium, Fr. Neri and other priests of the diocese received death threats.
Based on the book, an Army sergeant and a band of local militiamen who were said to be involved in timber smuggling were named as suspects in the incident. But no arrests were made and they were never indicted.
Satur, a forest protection officer deputized by the Department of Environment and Natural Resouces, was killed a few years after the imposition of a logging moratorium in Bukidnon.
In 1988, then environment secretary Fulgencio Factoran Jr. declared a logging moratorium in Bukidnon in the wake of anti-logging protests initiated by the people of San Fernando town which culminated in a hunger strike in Manila. The church earlier opted for a selective log ban but it was not pursued, Bishop Rosales asked the national government to declare the total log ban.
But logging, though on a smaller scale, persisted in Bukidnon even after the logging moratorium was imposed.
In September 1990, Satur was 13th on the list of 45 members of the Bukidnon clergy who were deputized by the DENR as forest protection officers.
Deputized forest protection officers are authorized to arrest persons who are caught in the act of committing violations against forestry laws and to seize tools and equipment used in the offenses and the forest products taken by the offenders.
A DENR Bukidnon report in 1991 showed that Satur facilitated the confiscation of close to 7,000 board feet of lumber in Valencia.
The provincial government has declared every October 14 to be commemorated as the Fr. Neri Satur Day in the province. (BukidnonNews.Net)