Environment Secretary Gina Lopez INQUIRER PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA
LUCENA CITY—Environmentalists have welcomed Environment Secretary Gina Lopez’s plan to enlist former police and military personnel as part of an intensified war against illegal loggers in the country, but they urged her first to stop “rampant” corruption among enforcers involved in forest protection in her department.
“She should start her house cleaning. Stop the corruption in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources first,” Fr. Pete Montallana, who heads the Save Sierra Madre Network Alliance (SSMNA), said on Thursday.
SSMNA is a network of indigenous peoples’ groups, nongovernment organizations, religious and other individuals working for the conservation and protection of the Sierra Madre, which stretches from Quezon to Cagayan provinces. It is home to the largest remaining tract of old-growth tropical rainforest in the Philippines.
Lopez had said the proposed law-enforcement team would be patterned after the police’s highly trained special weapons and tactics (SWAT) unit.
‘Timely response’
Montallana called the secretary’s plan a “timely response to protect and save of what remains of the country’s fragile forest,” referring to the Sierra Madre mountain ranges.
“We fully agree with [Lopez’s] plan to form a strike force. But she should first stop the connivance between forest destroyers and law enforcers,” said Glenn Forbes, area director of Tanggol Kalikasan, a public interest law office with advocacy on environmental protection.
Forbes cited his group’s findings that some personnel from the DENR, Department of Justice, police, military and even communist rebels, were protecting illegal loggers and their financiers.
He identified northern Quezon, Montalban and Tanay in Rizal province, and the provinces of Aurora, Isabela and Cagayan as illegal logging hotspots.
Illegal loggers use the Umiray River, which connects Aurora and Quezon and ends at the mouth of Pacific Ocean in Infanta town in Quezon, to transport logs felled from the Sierra Madre, Forbes said.
After its construction was completed in early 2014, the Umiray Bridge provided easy access to the mountain and opened another route to the transport of illegal forest resources, environmental advocates said.
Commercial fishers
Forbes urged Lopez to also wage war against commercial fishers who continue to use destructive fishing implements and methods in Lamon and Tayabas bays.
He said small fishermen had been complaining about their dwindling catch because of commercial trawl fishing.
Montallana said he had initial reservations about Lopez’s appointment to head the DENR due to her connection with a giant media conglomerate and for being a member of an influential clan involved in varied business interests.
“But she is now the DENR secretary, and we have to deal with it. President Duterte chose her and we all have to respect that,” he said.
Montallana praised Lopez’s firm stance against mining as commendable. “She needs all the support,” he said.
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