The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has started issuing computerized forms for clearances of timber and lumber shipments to eliminate fraud or corruption while the forest products are being transported from their point of origin to business establishments that own them.
The computerized certificate of timber origin (CTO) and certificate of lumber origin (CLO) will be issued by the community environment and natural resources office (CENRO) for every shipment of wood products in a system that will be supervised and monitored by the DENR regional offices.
Secretary Jose L. Atienza said the DENR is adopting the computerized forms for log and lumber shipments for easy monitoring of movements and conveyance of timber and lumber products.
The CTO will be the form required to accompany the forest product if it is still in its raw form, while the CLO will be the required document if the product had been processed already.
The CTO will show the number of logs/timber/flitches being shipped as well as the species, volume in cubic meters, source and the destination and/or consignee.
The DENR regional offices will be equipped with a computer system developed for the generation and tracking of the CTO and CLO forms courtesy of the Forest Management Bureau and the information system and technology office of the DENR.
Information technology (IT) experts will train the regional office staff on the CTO and CLO generation and tracking system.
The old CTO/CLO forms under Administrative Order No. 07 series of 1994 entitled “Revised Guidelines Governing the issuance of Certificate of Origin for Logs, Timber, Lumber and Non-Timber Forest Products” have no tamper-proof security features.
The new computer generated forms have expiry dates, aside from the bar codes and the computer based serial numbers.
Moreover, certificates issued before could be extended unlike the new computer generated forms that have expiry or a specific validity period.
“We hope that this computerized generation of CTO and CLO would prevent the illegal transport of timbers and logs, as well as help us in easily tracing accountabilities in the disposition of forest products,” Atienza said.