Army captain faces raps for lumber smuggling

NORTH COTABATO - The Army’s 6th Infantry Division will file administrative charges against a captain and his men for the attempted smuggling of undocumented lumbers from Alamada town using two military 6x6 trucks.

“We are now wrapping up our investigation on the case,” Col. Dickson Hermoso, 6th ID’s spokesman and inspector-general, announced Thursday over Catholic station dxMS in Cotabato City.

Members of the Alamada municipal police intercepted last week Army Captain Sarcon Anggui and his men on board military trucks loaded with undocumented lumbers en route to Midsayap town, also in North Cotabato.

The lumbers were cut, without permit, from timbers harvested illegally from a public land in Alamada, which is being claimed by another Army officer.

Anggui belong to the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion based in Pikit, North Cotabato.

A subordinate of Anggui, Corporal Uting Guiabel, was, in fact, shot in the leg by one of the policemen that flagged them down for refusing to yield.

The Alamada police seized the two Army trucks carrying the lumbers, but eventually released both to the 6th ID after the turnover of the illegal forest products to the provincial office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Hermoso said administrative charges will be filed against Anggui and his subordinates next week.

“The 6th ID has actively been advocating for the protection of the environment and the wise utilization of natural resources. The division will not tolerate any activity of any member that run counter to that advocacy,” Hermoso said.