Soldiers escalate operations vs illegal loggers

ILIGAN CITY—Attempts to defy President Benigno Aquino’s order to stop logging in natural forests continue.

The military said since Oct. 10, soldiers and workers of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) here and in nearby Lanao del Norte have been confiscating logs in what an officer said were massive raids on illegal logging operations.

More than 50,000 board-feet of lumber and logs had been confiscated since Oct. 10, according to Col. Ricardo Jalad, head of the Army’s 2nd Mechanized Brigade.

In this city alone, at least 4,880 board-feet of lumber, four fly wheels and blades for processing logs and four electric motors were seized from illegal sawmills in the villages of Ubaldo Laya and Tambakan, Jalad said.

He said his soldiers also recently seized two sawmill machines in Sitio Limunsudan in Barangay Rogongon here, where some 1,000 pieces of lumber were also confiscated.

In Lanao del Norte, the 35th Infantry Battalion also reported the seizure of at least 3,105 board-feet of illegally cut lumber in Pandanan, Sultan Naga Dimaporo, while the 15th Infantry Battalion based in Kauswagan town said soldiers hauled about 20,000 board-feet of illegally cut lumber from an unregistered sawmill.

Jalad said the relentless operation against illegal logging was aimed at preventing a repeat of the devastating floods in December last year in this city and Cagayan de Oro City.

The death toll reached nearly 2,000 in the two cities, many of the fatalities being killed after they were pummeled by logs washed down by heavy rains from denuded forests in Lanao del Norte.

Jalad, however, said the DENR should swiftly file charges against illegal loggers.

In a related development, the Court of Appeals in Cagayan de Oro City ordered the local governments of Iligan City, Lanao del Sur and Bukidnon to clear their rivers of logs deposited by Sendong. Richel Umel, with a report from Tito Fiel, Inquirer Mindanao