LANAO DEL SUR — Officials on Saturday padlocked three sawmills and impounded 12 truckloads of lumber and still uncut timber in Maguing town in Lanao del Sur in a high-risk operation supported by vigilant folks.
The forest products were smuggled from protected watersheds in the surroundings of Maguing in the first district of Lanao del Sur, which is part of the 180,000-hectare Lake Lanao watershed.
The operation, led by Kahal Kedtag, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), was carried out based on reports by members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) on the rampant cutting of forest trees in upland barangays in Maguing.
Tropical rainforests around Maguing are part of government-controlled watersheds from where springs big rivers that drain into the majestic Lake Lanao.
Kedtag, assisted by his subordinates in the provincial office of the DENR in Lanao del Sur, also confiscated stationary engines and other equipment used for sawing of timber into lumber to be sold in the adjoining cities of Marawi and Iligan.
More than 50 MNLF members, some of them armed with M60 machine guns and shoulder-fire rocket launchers, provided security while DENR-ARMM officials searched the three sawmills in different sites.
Kedtag said the raid was initiated in keeping with the commitment of ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman to support the environment-protection efforts of DENR Secretary Gina Lopez and President Rodrigo Duterte.
Each of the 12 trucks used in hauling the impounded forest products to the Lanao del Sur provincial capitol in Marawi City carried no less than five tons of lumber and still uncut timber.
“We are thankful to the vigilant residents of Maguing and the provincial government of Lanao del Sur for helping us carry out this large-scale anti-illegal logging operations,” Kedtag said.
Five of the 12 dump trucks used in the hauling of the forest products from Maguing to Marawi City are owned by the office of Lanao del Sur Gov. Soraya Alonto-Adiong.
Cutting of forest trees in ARMM, which covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in mainland Mindanao, and the islands of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, was banned in January 2012 by Hataman.
“The ban has not been lifted and Gov. Hataman is keen on sustaining it for good because its benefits are now being felt,” Kedtag said.
The DENR-ARMM shut down 16 unlicensed sawmills in different Lanao del Sur towns and seized more than 200 tons of forest products in operations launched immediately after Hataman signed in January 2012 the moratorium on all forms of logging operations in the autonomous region.
Records obtained from DENR-ARMM indicated a 21,000-hectare increase in the region’s more 200,000 hectares of forests since the ban was enforced more than three years ago.
Kedtag said the feat is a result of the massive reforestation of “logged over areas” and hinterlands abandoned by “slash-and-burn farmers” who burn vast tracts of forests for rice and corn farming.
“Many owners of large patches of private lands have also been planting forest trees in their titled lands in support of our reforestation program,” he added.
The watershed areas in Lanao del Sur comprise 180,000-hectares of forests in mountain ranges overlooking Lake Lanao, whose downstream flow to Iligan City and Lanao del Norte propels hydroelectric plants supplying three-fourths of Mindanao’s daily power needs.
Kedtag said Hataman want the operators of the three sawmills they shut down last Saturday prosecuted in court.
Kedtag declined to reveal their names pending the filing of criminal cases against them.
He and the provincial environment officer of Lanao del Sur, Kusain Abbas, separately said the forest products impounded last Saturday in Maguing shall be subjected to adjudication proceedings.
“We are certain the owners will not attend the proceedings. Eventually, these forest products will become usable for government projects,” Kedtag said.
He said there is a possibility the seized forest products will be used for school chairs for conflict-stricken areas in Butig town also in the first district of Lanao del Sur.
Schools in Butig were damaged by hostilities there last November between the military and the Maute terror group.