CITY OF MALOLOS?Squatting and illegal logging at the watershed protecting the Angat Dam should be looked into to reduce the vulnerability of Metro Manila?s primary source for potable water, foresters here said on Tuesday.

Mendel Garcia, head of the Angat Watershed Reservation Team (Awat) which oversees the 62,309-hectare forest, called on President Aquino to pay attention to the 600 settlers who took over portions of the watershed within the boundaries of Barangay San Mateo in Norzagaray town.

Among the watershed invaders are employees of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) who have been occupying the place for the last 20 years, Garcia said.

The Napocor has jurisdiction over the dam and its reservation.

Garcia said the government must remove the illegal settlers instead of just planting new trees at the Angat Dam reserve if it wants to exhaust all avenues for protecting Metro Manila?s drinking water supply.

?We have long championed the case against illegal settlers at the watershed. Water depletion at the dam would soon become a cycle, and we do not solve it by simply planting new trees without uprooting the settlers who keep logging them anyway,? he said.

He said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources had tried to address the problem by encouraging the settlers to take care of the forests, but the agency had failed.

Garcia also blamed the municipal government of Norzagaray for its inability to keep the number of illegal settlers down.

Norzagaray Mayor Feliciano Legaspi, however, said there was no evidence the illegal settlers were responsible for logging in the watershed.

He also said the deforestation is occurring under the watch of the Napocor, not the local government. The Awat office has recorded more than 30 cases of timber poaching from 2005 to 2010, some implicating former elected officials.

In most cases, timber poachers push illegal logs over to the slopes of mountains to avoid being intercepted by law enforcers, Garcia said.

The logs are normally retrieved below the mountains and hauled to buyers, but many have simply been abandoned by settlers who decide not to make the effort of scaling down cliffs.

But illegal loggers at the Angat watershed have scared the community.

Many foresters believe illegal loggers were behind the murder in 2006 of Winifredo Montecillo, a pastor of the Assemblies of God denomination based in Sitio Ipo in the town.