Oscar “Ka Ondo” Pelayo was sentenced to prison this week in Palawan, nearly two decades after authorities first accused him of illegal fishing involving cyanide use—an allegation he and many in his small coastal community of Sitio Marihangin have long denied.
Pelayo, a known community leader and elder fisherfolk, was charged in 2006 after cyanide was allegedly found in his pump boat. But residents of the remote Bugsuk Island village say the case was a setup, part of a broader pattern of harassment against those resisting commercial encroachment into traditional fishing waters.
His arrest, according to testimony cited by a local rights movement, wasn’t carried out by police—but by private security forces reportedly working for Jewelmer, a luxury pearl farming corporation operating in the area. Witnesses say Pelayo was handcuffed without a warrant and violently beaten, an incident activists argue is emblematic of the abuse endured by Indigenous Palaw’an communities.
“He was illegally restrained and physically assaulted,” said a statement from SAMBILOG – Balik Bugsuk Movement, a local alliance advocating for Indigenous rights. “It was a blatant violation of his human rights.”
The sentencing has stirred fresh concerns in Palawan over the growing use of private armed security forces in territorial disputes, particularly in areas where Indigenous fisherfolk have clashed with powerful business interests over land and sea rights. The island of Bugsuk, while remote, has become a flashpoint for such tensions.
“It is never a crime to defend one’s home, land, and dignity,” the SAMBILOG movement said, adding that the pattern of targeting community leaders reveals an “orchestrated effort to silence those who dare to stand up.”
While Jewelmer has not publicly responded to the renewed allegations, rights groups are calling on government authorities to investigate the use of corporate security in arrests and what they describe as the criminalization of subsistence fishing.
