‘Lift logging suspension in Aurora’

CASIGURAN, Aurora — Residents here, who had been dependent on various wood-based industries, called on President Arroyo to lift the order suspending logging operations in northern Aurora and in southeastern Isabela to arrest mass unemployment now largely being felt in this coastal communities.

Over the weekend, displaced workers from various furniture shops, sash factories and veneer plants held a prayer vigil and rally in front of the local Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) office here to dramatize their appeal to the President to look into the plight of the families of displaced workers who were affected by the suspension of logging operations in Dilasag and Casiguran in Aurora and Dinapigue in Isabela.

Market vendors, fisherfolk, members of the transport sector and irrigators’ associations, farmers and owners of stores and small eateries also joined the rallyists in airing their appeal to Mrs. Arroyo and Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Michael Defensor.

They said the economic growth contributed by the wood-based industry has collapsed in barely three months of logging suspension in northern Aurora.

They added that the logging suspension not only affects the workers of the wood-based industry but the entire Dicadi area, referring to the towns of Dinalungan, Casiguran and Dilasag.

Mrs. Arroyo ordered the suspension of all logging operations in the entire archipelago shortly after the spate of typhoons that devastated several Luzon provinces last November.

The towns of Gen. Nakar, Infanta and Real in Quezon and Ma. Aurora and Dingalan in Aurora were the hardest-hit areas.