Washed up logs to be used in building homes

MANILA, Philippines—The logs that tumbled down on Iligan City from a swollen river and left a wide swath of destruction will be used to build the homes of tens of thousands of victims of Tropical Storm “Sendong,” officials said on Friday.

President Aquino has ordered Environment Secretary Ramon Paje to confiscate the estimated 5,000 cubic meters of logs and turn these over to Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman.

“The President’s instruction is to use these logs to build the homes of those who had lost their abode,” Paje said in an interview by phone.

According to Paje, if 65 percent of the the logs he ordered confiscated on Thursday would be processed into lumber, this would be roughly equivalent to 1.37 million board feet. A 10-wheel truck can load 10,000 board feet of lumber.

He couldn’t say how many families could benefit from this. Social welfare officials have been registering the displaced in evacuation centers for emergency housing assistance.

“We’re going to use the list as basis for shelter and emergency shelter assistance,” Soliman said.

The logs were believed to have originated from the Kapai River in Lanao del Sur province and carried downstream by the Iligan River as heavy rain lashed Mindanao and parts of Visayas late last week.

Lanao del Sur is part of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which has its own environment secretary who did not enforce the President’s Executive Order No. 23 imposing a moratorium on logging beginning Feb. 21, according to Paje.

On Mr. Aquino’s instruction, newly designated ARMM officer in charge Mujiv Hataman ordered a total log ban in the region this week.

“That was the problem. When the President declared a total log ban, they were not sold on the idea. So logging in ARMM was allowed, and above that, there was illegal logging,” Paje told the Inquirer.

While past ARMM officials ignored the moratorium, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) seized logs that were transported outside of the autonomous region, and at one point ended up being charged in court, Paje said.

He said it was Hataman’s call to take to task the logging concessionaires or illegal loggers inside the ARMM.

Out of its P1.3-billion budget for the National Greening Program in 2011, the DENR released P30 million to ARMM for its own greening program, Paje said.

“Since we’re supporting the ARMM, we’re demanding that the ARMM comply with the national government directive,” he said. “They have their own DENR secretary. We will respect ARMM officials. We’re only asking them to cooperate.”

The government is targeting to reforest 1.5 million hectares of protected and open areas by 2016. In 2011, it has reforested 78,000 ha, more than double the 32,000 ha in 2010.