Police and military leaderships have suspended the pursuit operations against the abductors of the seven employees of the local office of the Department of Environment Natural Resources (DENR) in Butuan City to give way for the negotiation for their safe release, a regional police commander said on Thursday.

Chief Superintendent Lino Calingasan, director of the CARAGA Police, said that they are currently allowing local Church officials and tribe leaders, whom he said have already establish contacts with the abductors, for the release of Forester Gabriel Arlan, the team leader, Teofredo Pujadas, Rito Espenido, Rudy Clar, Eduardo Abogatal, Efren Sabuero, and Emiliano Gatillo Jr.

The seven DENR personnel were kidnapped at around 1 a.m. on Wednesday in Barangay Anticala in Butuan City.

“We have suspended the operations because we are for the peaceful resolution of this problem,” said Calingasan in a phone interview.

So far, Calingasan said the kidnappers, headed by a certain Andot Behing, have already relayed four demands in exchange for the release of their captives during a recent contact with the Crisis Management Committee which was earlier set up to resolve the problem.

The demands are 1) cancel the community based forest management agreement operating in Sibagat area; 2) award certificate on ancestral domain title; 3) approval of customary farm; and, 4) cancel the operation of integrated forest management agreement.

Calingasan said demands only confirmed their earlier suspicion that the abductors are not communist rebels but local tribesmen who were affected by the government’s decision to intensify the campaign against illegal logging activities in the area.