Hot lumber seized near Angat Dam

MALOLOS CITY ,Philippines  – Forest guards confiscated about a thousand board feet of illegally cut lumber discovered near Angat Dam Thursday morning.

Mendel Garcia, head of the National Power Corp. – Angat Watershed Area Team, said the illegally cut lumber were discovered by Napocor-AWAT forest guards while conducting patrols in the vicinity of the watershed in Barangay San Mateo, Norzagaray town.

Garcia said they sought the assistance of the Army's 56th Infantry Battalion and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to retrieve the other lumber in the area. Sources claimed an armed group cut the lumber.

“We are undermanned,” Garcia said.

A protected wildlife area, the 55,000-hectare Angat Dam watershed supplies 97 percent of Metro Manila’s potable water requirement. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), DENR and Department of Science and Technology have listed it as the most critical watershed in the country.

Residents said that a group known as the Aniban ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (AMA) was behind the timber poaching operations within the watershed.

“They are armed because they are protected by the police,” a resident who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal said.