THE Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is in hot water for cutting down several trees along the highway in the southern towns of Cebu.
The Cebu provincial government will be filing administrative and criminal charges next week against DPWH’s 4th Engineering District head, engineer Fernando Cruz, and his personnel.
Provincial Legal Officer Marino Martinquilla, in a press conference, said Cruz and his department violated section 3 of Presidential Decree (PD) 953, which requires the planting of trees in certain places and penalizes unauthorized cutting, destruction, damaging and injuring of certain trees, plants and vegetation.
Violation of this law is punishable by imprisonment of not less than six months and not more than two years, or a fine of not less than P500 and not more than P5,000.
However, violators may face both sanctions at the court’s discretion.
Cutting, destroying or injuring of trees may be allowed for public safety or for aesthetic purposes but it has to have prior authority from the government agencies that have jurisdiction of the trees.
Photos of the tree stumps along the highway were shown to the media during yesterday’s press conference.
The Capitol is conducting an inventory of the number of trees cut.
Capitol spokesman Rory Jon Sepulveda said the governor considers this a “vey serious offense.”
Sepulveda added this should serve as a warning to everybody.
Dump trucks and multicabs lent by the provincial government to DPWH-7 for its beautification program have been recalled after the governor learned of the indiscriminate cutting of trees.
Garcia called up Cruz on Wednesday to ask him about the report but Cruz denied it, saying they just pruned the trees as these posed a danger to the motorists. Correspondent Carmel Loise Matus