4 face illegal logging raps in Isabela

ILAGAN, Isabela – The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is set to file charges against four persons here for alleged illegal cutting of forest trees in one of the province’s remaining forest areas.  

Forester Felix Taguba, provincial environment and natural resources officer, said the other day that criminal charges are now being readied against Nelson Allapitan, Manolo Malto, Jomar Muñoz and Lito Barameda for violation of Presidential Decree 705 or the Anti Illegal Logging Law.  

The charges, he said, stemmed from the apprehension of the four suspects last week by DENR-led operatives. They were caught cutting trees in Divilican town, one of the government’s forest reserve areas in the province, which is part of the vast Sierra Madre Biodiversity Zone.

Taguba said the operatives also confiscated the suspects’ logging equipment, which, along with 20 felled matured trees, would be used as evidence against them.

Gov. Grace Padaca, in her recent state of the province address, said that more than 150,000 board feet of illegally acquired logs and lumber were confiscated by joint elements of the provincial government, the police, the Church-led non-government organizations and the DENR since they have stepped up their anti-illegal logging drive early last year. 

Meanwhile, despite an extremely limited budget in guarding the still vast remaining forests in Cagayan Valley, DENR Regional Executive Director Clarence Baguilat said the agency is serious in protecting and maintaining as best as it could the region’s remaining forest cover.

Baguilat said a "measly amount" of only P3 per hectare or a P3.2 million has been allotted in this year’s budget to secure the region’s forest cover. This, he said, is hardly enough to pay for the handful of forest guards.

Despite the region having the second biggest forest cover in the country, he said, each of the 361 forest guards in the region has to safeguard 940,654 hectares of untenured forest or some 3,700 hectares per forest ranger for the whole region, with an unimaginable allowance of only P30 per month.