DENR lifts log ban in 3 Aurora towns

BALER, Aurora — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has given the go signal for a logging firm to proceed with its timber harvesting operations in three towns in Aurora.

DENR Secretary Michael Defensor sanctioned the lifting of the log ban of the Industries Development Corp. (IDC), which holds an Integrated Management Agreement (IFMA) in Casiguran, Dilasag and Dinalungan towns.

According to Defensor, the lifting of the suspension in the three towns was validated by non-government organizations, including Tanggol Kalikasan.

Another DENR official who requested anonymity said the towns where the suspension of logging was lifted belong to the so-called "more protected" area of the province.

However, Aurora Gov. Bellaflor Angara said that logging operations in the towns remain selective.

"Not all areas in the forests there could be touched," Angara told The Star.

There were reports that illegal logging has resumed in other areas in this province, particularly in the Umiray watershed in Dingalan, one of the towns worst hit by flashfloods during a series of typhoons that hit eastern Luzon late last year.

A source from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), who asked not to be named, said he learned about the resurgence of illegal logging in Dingalan in the course of the operations against two suspects in the killing of a publisher-editor of a local tabloid last May.

"The two have been monitored in the mountains of Umiray and are apparently receiving financial help from the operators of illegal logging there," the NBI source said. The suspects, Boy Morete and Emmanuel Alday, both residents of Dingalan, were implicated, together with Dingalan Mayor Jaime Ylarde, in the killling of local publisher-editor Philip Agustin whose newspaper published alleged anomalies in the local government.

Angara expressed concern about the reports on illegal logging activities in the town, saying she immediately ordered an investigation.

Meanwhile, Angara also said that all families displaced by last year’s flashfloods in Baler, San Luis and Ma. Aurora towns were permanently resettled in safer areas. But in Dingalan, some 1,000 families, mostly in Barangay Paltik, still await resettlement due to lack of safe government lands.

Earlier, Paltik was declared a "no man’s land" after the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) found out that the barangay was in the path of landslides and directly lying on the Philippine fault zone.

Angara said some residents of Paltik have been relocated to a five-hectare portion of Barangay Karagsakan which experts identified as safe.

"Of that area, some 1.5 hectares are used for residential relocation while the remaining 3.5 hectares are being used for farming and other livelihood projects. The resettlement projects are being supported largely by the Gawad Kalinga Foundation," she said.

Angara said that the mayor of Dingalan is now negotiating with the DENR for the conversion of some 48 hectares of public lands in Umiray for resettlement, but folk in Paltik refused to be relocated to the area, which they found too far from the sources of their livelihood.