LUCENA CITY -- MASSIVE corruption at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is a major factor for the continued destruction of the Sierra Madre mountain range, the head of a Church-based group struggling to stop logging in the mountain said.

Fr. Pete Montallana, chair of Task Force Sierra Madre, said in a phone interview that, as a result of connivance between DENR officials and employees and logging syndicates, the denudation of Sierra Madre continues at an alarming rate.

He said if Environment Secretary Joselito Atienza was serious about his job, he should tap non-DENR people to stop logging in Sierra Madre, ?otherwise it would only end up as another foolish charade.?

Atienza was former Manila mayor and one of the doggedly loyal supporters of President Macapagal-Arroyo prior to his appointment at the DENR.

Montallana said an investigation last year on corruption at the DENR in northern Quezon suddenly stopped after his group started to present evidence.

?Secretary Atienza?s intention to get rid of DENR scalawags might end up as another futile exercise. The government itself is allowing corrupt government personnel to make a fool of forestry laws,? the priest said.

Bishop Rolando Tria Tirona, head of the Prelature of Infanta, also blamed the DENR for the continued destruction of Sierra Madre.

At least three DENR-Quezon chiefs have been fired due to failure to stop logging in Sierra Madre.

In his New Year?s message on Thursday, Atienza admitted that corrupt DENR men were behind the massive deforestation in the country. He vowed to establish a ?corruption-free and transparent? DENR.

However, Montallana predicted that 2008 will bring no end to the continuous logging in Sierra Madre.

He said forest criminals did not even respect Christmas.

?They continue to cut trees without letup even in the coldest of December nights,? he said.

He quoted Christmas carolers as reporting truckloads of illegally cut lumber and flitches being smuggled out of the mountain in Tanay, Rizal and the northern Quezon towns of General Nakar and Infanta.

?The coming year calls for more vigilance to stop the demonic forest denudation,? he said.

According to Montallana, some of the illegal pieces of lumber were being transported out of Sierra Madre via Umiray River and through Dingalan, Aurora.

The river separating Aurora province and General Nakar town has been a known channel for the transport of illegal forest products. From the upper parts of Sierra Madre, the illegal loggers float the lumber downstream to the Pacific Ocean.

?The illegal loggers based in Dingalan and Quezon are having a fiesta once again. The DENR can stop these all if they really want to. But they are doing nothing,? Montallana said.

He said previous logging bans announced by the government were ?empty announcements and rhetoric.?

In November 2004, landslides and floods in Quezon and Aurora provinces killed more than 1,000 people.

Massive logging in the Sierra Madre mountain ranges has been blamed for the tragedy.