Cops secure forest, seize ‘hot’ logs

POLICE enter the site of illegal logging in a forest in Bauko, Mountain Province and secure the area. RICHARD BALONGLONG/INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON

BAGUIO CITY—Police secured a forest in Bauko town in Mountain Province, after an aerial surveillance last week spotted illegal logging operations that destroyed a six-hectare stretch of woodland.

A police team seized more than 13,000 board feet of lumber valued at P380,000 from trees cut by chainsaws, according to a May 17 report to the office of Mountain Province prosecutor in capital Bontoc town.

No one was caught at the logging site, sources said, but the police held for questioning five people, including a village official.

The logging site was found by Air Force personnel last week during a routine reconnaissance flight.

Also on Tuesday, a forest ranger, Ariston Libag, and policemen stationed in Bokod town, Benguet province, chanced upon an abandoned logging site at Sitio Shontog in Barangay Bobok-Bisal, according to the Cordillera police. They hauled 230 board feet of lumber valued at P6,900.

In Bulacan province on Monday, Army soldiers seized 300 board feet of red Lauan and the vehicles used to transport the illegal lumber from the mountains of Doña Remedios Trinidad (DRT) town.

Acting on a tip, soldiers from the Army’s 48th Infantry Battalion set up a dragnet at Sitio Buasao in Barangay Sapang Bulac and found six motorcycles and an Isuzu Elf van containing the lumber abandoned on the road.

The confiscated items were turned over to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon and Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon