Crackdown on vs illegal Caraga sawmills

Camp Rafael Rodri­guez, Butuan City – Crackdown on illegally installed wood sawmills sawing illegally cut logs mostly hard wood species in Caraga Region have resulted to the dismantling of an unlicensed sawmill in Sitio Obian, Trento, Agusan del Sur last week, the Caraga Police Regional Office here, showed.

Police said joint elements of the Trento Municipal Police Office and selected DENR personnel discovered an illegally installed sawmill in said secluded place. Caught in the act of sawing 455 pieces of lawaan wood fletches were the operators of the sawmill.

The undocumented wood fletches with a volume of 4,296 board feet is estimated to be worth at current market value of P85,920, according to DENR personnel and Trento policemen headed by Police Inspector Celso Acero, Trento police chief.

Police said investigation is still ongoing as to the identity of the owner of said sawmill. The illegally cut logs and confiscated items were immediately brought to CENRO/DENR Bunawan Office for proper disposition.   

But relatives of the sawmill workers have been complaining about the selective type of seizure and confiscation authorities claiming other many illegally installed sawmills including illegally installed mineral ore processing plants in Agusan del Sur were not being checked neither inspected.

Earlier, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Hermogenes Esperon got irked on reports that illegal logging and mining activities in Caraga were financially aiding communist insurgents in the region from the proceeds of illegal logging.

But the New People’s Army for their part, alleged that police and military personnel including some politicians also make money from illegal mining and logging in the Caraga Region.

Esperon was in Caraga lately to personally turn over cash benefits and financial aids amounting to millions of pesos from hard earned taxpayers’ money to former NPA rebels who returned to the mainstream of society.

Critics claimed that while Esperon is paying P60,000 to P50,000 each for every NPA rebel returnee not including other livelihood packages amounting to millions, illegal loggers and miners on the other hand were giving firearms and money to communist guerrillas for the protection of their illegal logging business in the mountains.