LUCENA CITY, Philippines--Military and provincial environment watchdogs seized some 10,000 board feet of logs believed to have been illegally cut from the Sierra Madre mountain ranges in the coastal town of Mauban, Quezon, early Tuesday.

Mauban, 147 kilometers from Manila and 42 km from Lucena City, again became a transshipment port for illegal forest products, according to Allan Castillo, team leader of Task Force Bantay Kalikasan (TFBK) who was with soldiers of the Army?s 3rd Special Forces Company during the operation.

The team confiscated 110 pieces of hardwood lauan species along the banks of the Maabon River in Barangay Sabang.

Castillo said the logs tied with ropes were floating along the river banks at around 1 a.m.

When the team found the outrigger boat that transported the timber to the interior part of the river, the crew members jumped out and escaped.

Quoting an ?asset? in Mauban, Castillo pointed to one alias ?Rosalyn,? a notorious trader of illegal lumber based in Mauban, as the owner.

The TFBK was created by Quezon Gov. Rafael Nantes to combat widespread environment destruction in the province.

A follow-up investigation by the raiding team verified that the logs came from Palanan, Isabela.

Castillo said the logs would be ferried and temporarily stocked at the yard of the provincial engineer?s office in Lucena.

Last month, the TFBK and the same Army unit seized 8,000 board feet of illegally cut narra logs, also from the Sierra Madre, in Barangay Cagsiay.

Transshipment points

Mauban and Real towns in northern Quezon, both facing the Pacific Ocean, have long been known as transshipment points of illegal forest products bound for Metro Manila and other Southern Tagalog provinces.

Former Quezon Board Member Eladio Pasamba, a native of Mauban, once revealed the existence of the so-called ?Mauban Boys? who had been hauling illegally cut logs from northern Luzon, passing through the Pacific Ocean.

Nap Buendicho, an Agta tribe ?governor,? said the recent heavy rainfall brought by successive typhoons worked in favor of loggers and allowed them to transport fallen timber through the Umiray River to a delta facing the Pacific.

Some of the illegally cut logs would be shipped out to Mauban or Dingalan in Aurora province, he said.

He said illegal logs also continued to be smuggled out through Tanay, Rizal, and, recently, through the Marikina-Infanta Road project.

Bendicho said the elections and the holidays are the busiest seasons for illegal logging operators in the Sierra Madre, particularly in General Nakar town in Quezon.

?During these periods, the noise of power chainsaws can be heard across the mountain with alarming regularity day and night,? he said. Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon