ILAGAN, Isabela – A rift is brewing between police officers of Mountain Province and this province over the reported disappearance of two trucks loaded with hot lumber here while on their way to Bontoc, Mountain Province ’s capital town.
The vehicles were among the three Isuzu Forward trucks confiscated last week by the Mt. Province’s (Paracelis) anti-illegal logging task force for transporting illegally-cut lumber along the Palitud road in Barangay Annonat, Paracelis town in said Cordillera province.
The trucks, carrying more than 5,000 board feet of illegally-cut lumber, were being taken to the task force’s safe-house here when police operatives, led by one SPO3 Pailas of the 205th Provincial Mobile Group, reportedly intercepted them at a checkpoint in Roxas (Isabela) just several meters from the task force’s safe house.
Due to difficulty of terrains going from Paracelis to Bontoc, one has to pass through Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya and Ifugao provinces before reaching the Mt. Province ’s capital.
Usually, confiscated logs, the task force said, have to pass through its Roxas safehouse for accounting and documentation before they will be brought to Bontoc where the Mt. Province provincial environment and natural resources office is based for proper disposition.
Task force members, who accompanied the trucks, led by Senior Inspector Pablo Undalos then introduced themselves and explained the nature of their operation. They said they later agreed to turn over the two trucks to the PMG operatives who reportedly brought them at the Roxas police station for further investigation, but when the task force later went to the said police station to affirm the legality of their operation, they claimed that the said trucks, including the contraband, were nowhere to be found. – Charlie Lagasca