Hot lumber charges denied

CEBU, Philippines - The lawyer of a logging firm whose workers were arrested last month by elements of the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) for allegedly transporting hot lumber has strongly denied the charges.

Atty. Meyrick Andrew Oseña also turned the tables on the PASG agents led by a certain Dominic Kabigting, alleging the latter was the one who asked for P30,000 in bribe money from the workers, who were intercepted while driving a 10-wheeler truck carrying lumber owned by a certain Domingo Mallon Vergara.

A PASG statement earlier announced the seizure of 1,295 pieces of hard wood like yakal in Atimonan, Quezon and that it had arrested the workers – Zaldy Aguinaldo, Joe Anthony Augusto and Romeo Landicho – and the driver of the truck identified as Teodoro Bacsa. A certain Samuel Orendain owned the truck.

The agency said the hot lumber was suspected to be smuggled to Taiwan.

Contrary to the PASG report, Oseña said in a letter to The STAR that the seized items were only soft lumber consisting of gmelina, mahogany, santol, mango, antipolo, dapdap and other species.

The cargo in the truck was certified by forest rangers Joven Villanueva and Augusto Pasaoay, tree marker Jesus Beleza, and Ramil Gutierrez, chief of the Forest Management Service.

Oseña said he has written to PASG chief Undersecretary Antonio Villar “requesting for any information in a form of certification regarding the official status of one Dominic Kabigting allegedly connected to his office as director.”

“This (clarification) is because said official was involved in an unlawful police operation conducted on February 28 to March 1, 2009 on Maharlika Highway in Gumaca, Quezon,” Oseña said.

He said Kabigting “has no reasonable ground to believe that a crime was actually happening then and that splinter group, we should term them as (such), was not actually tracking down the owners of the hot lumber.”

He said apart from having the necessary documents, Vergara, its owner, “is a legitimate operator and transporter with valid Certificate of Lumber Operation.”

He said the soft wood was to be delivered somewhere in Metro Manila.

Oseña also said the PASG report that only 697 pieces of the seized lumber were covered by permits “is bereft of any factual basis.”

According to a sworn statement by Bacsa, Kabigting and his men were allegedly asking for money but the workers could only cough up a few thousand pesos.