Group renews call for Paje to quit amid flood deaths

A group fighting to stop continued logging in one of the country’s most environmentally critical mountain ranges again pinned the blame for massive floods and deaths in the wake of Tropical Storm “Sendong” on the leadership of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje, however, disputed the groups’ allegations of inaction against corruption in his department being the main cause of unabated environmental destruction in many parts of the country.

In a letter to President Aquino, the Save Sierra Madre Network Alliance (SSMNA) said Paje should be removed amid his failure to stop corruption at the DENR that the group said was the chief cause of continued logging despite a supposed ban issued by the President.

“Secretary Paje has been weighed but found wanting,” said the group in their letter to Mr. Aquino on Dec. 25. “How many more tragedies will come before we accept the truth that the DENR secretary is inept in his post?” said the letter signed by Franciscan priest Fr. Pete Montallana,

SSMNA chair and key leader of the war on logging in Sierra Madre.

In previous interviews, Montallana said his group had referred a detailed list of environmental crimes and corrupt practices by DENR men and officials which the department had failed to act on.

Paje, however, said contrary to Montallana’s claim, his department has not been sleeping on the job.

“We have done a lot,” said Paje. He said at least 450 cases had been filed against illegal logging suspects and at least 12 DENR employees have been removed for corruption. Corruption cases are pending against at least 30 more employees, he said.

Paje listed one of his accomplishments as the issuance of Executive Order No. 23 by Mr. Aquino, which banned all forms of logging in natural forests. That EO, he said, was the result of “political will” that only now was achieved after failed attempts in the past to impose a total ban on commercial logging.

Montallana, however, said reality on the ground would show that the ban was just on paper. “Those logging moratoriums, national greening program … were all press releases,” he said.