Environmentalists, DENR personnel get death threats

LUCENA CITY—A renewed government campaign against logging in the Sierra Madre mountain ranges in the northern section of Quezon province has triggered death threats to environmentalists and personnel of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

“Messages relayed to us [warned that] we will be placed inside a coffin that they are preparing,” said Zander Bautista, assistant executive director of Save Sierra Madre Network Alliance (SSMNA).

But Bautista said he remained firm in his conviction to expose the return of illegal logging in the Sierra Madre. “We’re already used to receiving threats; this latest death threat is no different. We will not be cowed,” he said.

Miliarete Panaligan, head of the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) in Real town, said she also received similar threats several times, possibly coming from illegal logging operators and timber poachers.

“The latest [came in the form of] flowers and candles aimed at frightening me and my staff. But we leave our fate to the Lord Almighty,” Panaligan said on Monday.

She said the DENR’s task to protect the biodiversity-rich Sierra Madre was “too risky for the faint-hearted.”

Panaligan described her office personnel as vulnerable, saying they do not have guns to defend themselves.

Bautista said he was worried about the safety of one their colleagues, a member of the Agta tribe, because a suspect in the illegal logging operations also belongs to the tribe.

Messages of death threats were relayed by mountain villagers who supported SSMNA’s campaign to stop the destruction of the Sierra Madre. Bautista said his group did not report the threats to the police, lamenting that “nothing will happen even if we report it.”

They have started to take extra measures to ensure their safety, he said.

SSMNA earned the ire of illegal loggers and timber poachers after it exposed the return of illegal activities as reported by the Inquirer last month.

Catholic priest Pete Montallana, SSMNA president, said facing threats was part of their mission. “I know how their evil minds work. They are willing to kill just to protect their lucrative but unlawful forest activities,” he said.

Montallana asked the DENR to end the “rape” of the Sierra Madre by arresting known illegal logging operators and their cohorts.

“If [the DENR’s] current operation [against illegal loggers] is only ‘ningas kugon’ because it was reported in the media, these criminal acts against the environment and forest protection advocates will never stop,” he said.

The DENR has seized more than 13,000 board feet of hardwood lumber taken from the Sierra Madre since Holy Week last month, Panaligan said.

For several days last month, Bautista led an SSMNA team in monitoring activities in a section of the Sierra Madre in General Nakar town. He took photos of several piles of illegally cut lumber on the mountain trails, in rivers and in a makeshift shack.

Bautista also encountered a group of illegal loggers processing trees toppled by chainsaws.