ARMM backtracks on log ban to allow exemptions

MARAWI CITY—The highest-ranking officer in charge of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) backtracked on a decision to ban all forms of logging in the ARMM following the Dec. 17 disaster in two Northern Mindanao cities largely blamed on forest destruction in the region.

Mujiv Hatman, acting ARMM governor, said he was lifting the moratorium on tree-cutting in plantations although the ban on logging stays in natural growth forests.

He also imposed new conditions for securing a permit to cut trees inside private lands.

Hataman, acting on instructions by President Aquino, imposed a moratorium on issuing permits to cut trees even in private lands in ARMM after logs from Kapai, Lanao del Sur, were carried into Iligan City by floods and pummeled many residents there to their deaths at the height of Tropical Storm “Sendong.”

With a log ban already in place covering forest lands, the moratorium effectively shut down logging activities in the region.

Hataman said over the weekend that cutting of planted trees will now be allowed provided these are not located in watershed areas.

He said legitimate holders of licenses to cut trees, called integrated forest management agreements, have nothing to fear because they would be allowed to operate as long as their operations were not within watershed areas.

“If the watershed is endangered, pasensyahan tayo,” Hataman said.

But to prevent the new directive from being abused, Hataman said log-cutting permits for tree plantations outside of watershed areas would have to be cleared with the community environment and natural resources office (Cenro).

The Cenro clearance will be issued after site inspection to determine whether the trees are outside the watershed and after verification of the tree species that would be cut, he said.

Logs seized when the original order was issued would not be released even if these came from private lands, Hataman said.

He said the only conclusion that he would make if the origin of logs wasn’t clear was that the logs came from natural growth forests.

Officials of a village in Iligan City, meanwhile, decried what they said were efforts to use small-tree harvesters as scapegoats in the disaster that struck Iligan and another Northern Mindanao city, Cagayan de Oro.

Macasalong Daranda, councilor of Barangay Panoroganan in Iligan, said on Tuesday that blame should be pinned on large-scale logging companies.

“The illegal and massive cutting of trees in the hinterlands of Iligan and adjacent places in Lanao del Sur were done by companies and not by individuals or groups of people from the hinterland barangays, who were only seeking a living,” he said. Ryan D. Rosauro with a report from Tito Fiel, Inquirer Mindanao