Wood producers buck Paje's total log ban proposal

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Wood Producers Association (PWPA) is opposing the proposal of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon Paje to legislate a total log ban.

The PWPA said there is no further need for a law to ban logging in the natural forest as there are existing orders that only have to be implemented effectively by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

“What Secretary Paje must do is simply put his department’s best efforts at effectively implementing existing logging ban orders that are already in place,” said PWPA executive director Leonardo Angeles.

According to the PWPA, Paje had reportedly asked President Aquino to certify as urgent a proposed legislation that would put a stop to all forms of logging in the natural forest.

Furthermore, Paje had reportedly said that legislating a log ban would give his department and other agencies of government “more teeth” against illegal logging as a log ban law would “set in stone” rules to protect Philippine forests that would outlive the Aquino administration.

Angeles cited the logging ban orders issued during the administrations of Presidents Ferdinand Marcos, Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos which virtually cover the country’s entire forest lands.

He added that then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo imposed in 2004 a nationwide logging suspension that she subsequently lifted in mid-2005, but only in Regions 11 (Davao) and 13 (Caraga), and in Zamboanga del Sur, Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato, Apayao, Southern Isabela and Northern Aurora.

“It is only in 10 provinces of the country where the 15 members of the PWPA are responsibly and sustainably operating in the same natural residual forests for over 60 years before the issuance by President Aquino of EO 23, the nationwide logging moratorium in natural and residual forests,” Angeles clarified.

The PWPA pointed out that despite existing orders of logging ban or moratorium, illegal logging activities are openly and incessantly occurring in untenured forest lands, and even in the national parks and protected areas.

The DENR, even with its mandates, orders and proclamations, the PWPA countered, has never been able to successfully curb illegal logging.

The DENR has admitted, the PWPA said, that it does not have the necessary financial and physical resources, even if it is aided by the DND, DILG, AFP and PNP in the Anti-Illegal Task Force created under EO 23 to combat syndicated illegal logging.

The DENR, the PWPA pointed out, has only confiscated, from time to time, illegally cut timber as its accomplishment.

“Confiscation is not an accomplishment… it manifests failure of duty because the myriads of saplings and trees have been already wantonly cut and forever gone that no amount of reforestation can ever replace them,” Angeles said.

He said the DENR has to be more ingenious or innovative in controlling illegal logging, charcoal-making and kaingin-making.

The PWPA lamented that the logging ban or moratorium affects only the legitimate players or stakeholders like the few members of the PWPA, who are also usually used as the visible scapegoat for every flooding-related calamity and tragedy that visits the country.

However, only PWPA members faithfully stopped their logging operations and immediately brought down all their logging equipment on Day One of the effectivity of EO 23, and laid-off their workers after sensing that there would be no early lifting of the moratorium.

Despite the logging ban and moratorium, the PWPA pointed out, illegal logging, charcoal-making, and kaingin-making continue all over the untenured forest lands of the country.

This is evidenced by numerous small-diameter logs and tablon (squared timber) swept down by flood waters to Cagayan de Oro City and Iligan City and media-reported confiscation of illegally cut logs in the Cagayan Valley.

The PWPA stressed that the proposal of Paje for President Aquino to urge Congress to legislate a ban on all forms of logging in all natural forest is ill-advised.