‘Hot’ logs find cool use as school chairs

A STUDENT carries an armchair, made of illegal logs, on the first day of school at San Juan Senior High School in Batangas. GAUDENCIO DELA CRUZ/CONTRIBUTOR

SAN PEDRO CITY—Students of a newly opened public school in Batangas province attended classes this week using chairs made from trees felled by illegal loggers in Southern Tagalog.

San Juan Senior High School (SJSHS) in the coastal town of San Juan in Batangas received 358 chairs from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) region.

These were made out of 15,000 board feet of illegally cut lumber that the government seized through various operations in the provinces of Laguna and Quezon.

Under Executive Order No. 23 issued in 2011, public schools are priority recipients of lumber and other products that the government seize from illegal logging operations.

In a telephone interview on Thursday, Eleazar Alaira, Laguna environment officer, said the chairs donated to SJSHS in Barangay Lipahan were made from lauan and batino wood and taken from the DENR’s stockpile of products that were abandoned or were no longer needed as evidence in court cases.

The DENR in Laguna had seized logs and lumber worth P4.6 million from 2011 to 2015, records showed. Most of these came from Real and Pagbilao towns in Quezon and were abandoned or intercepted by authorities in Laguna.

Alaira said Laguna remains a transshipment point of illegal loggers to Metro Manila.

Noel Pasco, San Juan environmental officer, said each armchair costs P700.

Without the new chairs, said school principal Zenaida delos Santos, “we might need to borrow (plastic) chairs or our students would stand up in class.” Maricar Cinco, Inquirer Southern Luzon