DENR asks military to lead fight vs illegal loggers

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Environment Secretary Ramon Paje wants to militarize the campaign against illegal loggers in the countryside, noting their increasing danger to forest rangers, some 20 of whom have been killed in the line of duty since 2010.

“We are requesting that illegal logging operations in the Davao and Caraga regions be considered military operations because we believe it’s not just an issue of illegal logging,” Paje told a briefing on Thursday.

He said he asked Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin during President Aquino’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) on July 23 to provide military support to deputized forest enforcers, whose job includes monitoring illegal logging activities.

“During the last Sona, we talked to Secretary Gazmin and he is very willing to support us,” Paje said.

The official noted that 20 employees of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), including contractual workers and civil society partners, had been killed since 2010.

Recently, he said, he received a report that three DENR personnel were abducted in Agusan del Sur but were released “after hours of negotiation.”

“We’re recommending that it should be a military operation rather than just regulatory. The Armed Forces of the Philippines is already a member of the antiillegal logging task force, but we’re the lead agency. We want them to take the lead,” Paje said.

Paje said the DENR had been making huge strides in reducing the number of illegal logging “hot spots” in the country, from a high of 197 sites to only 28, now mostly concentrated in the Caraga and Davao regions.

But much more needs to be done, he said.