Isabela police, DENR intensify anti-illegal logging drive

ILAGAN, Isabela — After its successful campaign against illegal gambling, the Isabela police command is flexing its muscles to stop illegal logging in the province.

This, as the provincial police and the provincial environment and natural resources office forged last Friday a memorandum of agreement to jointly enforce environmental protection laws.

Senior Superintendent Napoleon Estilles, provincial police director, said he ordered the intensified drive against illegal logging following a directive from Philippine National Police chief Director General Edgar Aglipay.

Estilles vowed that no "sacred cows," be they politicians, big-time or small-time loggers, will be spared from the anti-illegal logging campaign. He called them "environmental criminals."

"Whoever they are, we will enforce the law on them without fear or favor," said Estilles, who is himself a lawyer.

Felix Taguba, provincial environment and natural resources officer, revealed to The STAR that indiscriminate cutting of trees remains unabated in some parts of the Sierra Madre mountains, particularly in coastal towns.

Taguba said cut logs from the towns of Maconacon, Palanan, Divilacan and Dinapigue are transported through waterways to Mauban, Quezon.

The Isabela towns of San Mariano, Ilagan, San Guillermo and San Agustin have been identified as sources of illegally cut logs.

Taguba, however, refused to name the people behind illegal logging in the province, saying some of them are permit holders of integrated forest management agreements (IFMAs). 

To stop the transport of illegally cut logs, Estilles said checkpoints, jointly manned by policemen and personnel of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), will be put up in Cauayan City and in the towns of Quezon, Ilagan, San Mariano, Cabagan, San Pablo, Tumauini, Ramon, Jones, Echague, Cordon, Angadanan, Palanan, Divilacan, Maconacon and Dinapigue.

"We are duty-bound, not only as law enforcers but as concerned citizens, to protect our environment against those who are out there destroying our forests," he said.

He said he would seek a dialogue with provincial prosecutors regarding the prosecution of illegal loggers.

"To curb this activity against our forests, our justice system should also work efficiently to show that the government is serious in its drive against these environmental criminals," he said.

Meanwhile, Gov. Grace Padaca said there is a looming consensus among provincial officials to declare a total log ban in the province.

Padaca, in her meeting last Thursday with regional and provincial officials of the DENR, said the four Isabela congressmen — Rodito Albano (first district), Edwin Uy (second district), Faustino Dy III (third district) and Anthony Miranda (fourth district) — are inclined to favor a total log ban.

Earlier, Miranda and Uy asked Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Mike Defensor to cancel the timber license agreements (TLA) issued to Pateco, Luzmatim and LLC Logging Concessionaires, which have been operating in the province since the mid-80s.

"We cannot afford to suffer the same fate (that befell) the residents of Quezon and Aurora," they said.

The recent spate of typhoons wreaked destruction in the two eastern Luzon provinces, with landslides and flash floods leaving hundreds of residents dead or missing.