LUCENA CITY –– Police seized illegally cut coconut lumber worth P130,220 while it was being unloaded from a boat in the coastal town of Plaridel in Quezon province on Sunday night.
Policemen caught Pablo Caparros, Hamir Reyes, and Domingo Caparros, while unloading 853 fletches of coconut lumber from a cargo boat near the seaport along the Maharlika Highway in Barangay Central around 6:30 p.m., Colonel Audie Madrideo, Quezon police chief, said in a report Monday.
The arrested suspects, residents of Alabat Island, failed to produce documents from the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) for the cargo, which prompted the authorities to confiscate the hot lumber and the boat.
The confiscated lumber has an estimated volume of 9,302 board feet (21.95 cubic meter).
The Coconut Preservation Act of 1995 bans the cutting of coconut trees without a permit from the local PCA office. Delfin T. Mallari Jr.