"We have tracked down their modus operandi from port to port in Mindanao to Manila and within the processing zones and hardware stores in Valenzuela City and the greater Manila area," Environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez said.
Working with the Bureau of Customs, Alvarez personally led agents in apprehending six 20-foot and 40-foot container vans loaded with illegal lumber form Mindanao which arrived Thursday on board the M/V Superferry 9, from Polloc Port in Parang, Maguindanao, going to Baliwag, Bulacan.
The DENR said the vans were declared as containing 91,878 board feet of mahogany lumber worth P2.3 million, "which is already enough to build 150 classrooms."
However, the DENR said volume and amount could easily go up as most shipments are usually misdeclared.
As part of President Arroyo’s intensified campaign against illegal logging, Alvarez ordered a crackdown on the use of commercial shipping lanes – for both cargo and passenger ships – in transporting illegal forest products.
The DENR has asked the Philippines Ports Authority and the Coast Guard in monitoring points of entry of illegal forest products.
The shipment, covered by Certificate of Timber/Lumber Origin No. 002927926 was issued by DENR’s Cotabato City OIC-Community Environment and Natural Resources Officer Odin Kalim on Nov. 4 and was reportedly owned by a certain Bai Arcela Abo.
It was shipped by Arcela Mini Sawmill and Lumberyard in Cotabato City.
Alvarez ordered a thorough investigation on the possible involvement of DENR personnel in Cotabato City and their possible connivance with the shipper and consignee in violation of Presidential Decree 705, or the Forestry Code of the Philippines.
"There is a collusion between illegal loggers, government personnel and big wood processing plants and the trail of illegal logging route is using recycled documents. Importers are reportedly paying document handlers at least P0.50 per board feet of lumber in exchange for documents," he said.
Earlier, eight container vans, shipped by Suraida Mini-Sawmill and Lumber also on board a Superferry, with P2.5 million illegal lumber, ended up with Soo Chiong Trading Corp. and Bayview Marketing in Valenzuela City, and with Goodwill Lumber in Baliwag, Bulacan.
Two Sulpicio Lines container vans were also intercepted in Davao City bound for Manila with 14,626 board feet of lumber, valued at P1.1 million.
"At the rate illegal loggers are cutting and running, like thieves that come and steal in the night, they will dry up Mindanao in 10 years, ruining its agriculture as they destroy its watersheds," Alvarez said.
"Illegal loggers cut in the sly, destroying volumes of logs but do not bother to replant and replace what they have taken away. They are contributing massively to the destruction of forests in the Mindanao area," he added.
The DENR offers forestry programs such as the Integrated Forest Management Agreement (IFMA) and the Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM) contract, wherein replenishment of tress cut are required of loggers.