8 illegal loggers charged

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga – The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has filed criminal charges against eight suspected illegal loggers in Bataan, Zambales, and Nueva Ecija after a week of intensified campaign that yielded 8,000 board feet of hot logs worth P700,000.  

“We will apply the full force of the law on anyone found violating our environment laws. We will do everything within our authority to make sure they are brought to jail,” said Antonio Principe, executive director of DENR-Central Luzon.

He said the DENR is intensifying its forest protection and environmental law enforcement activities throughout the region “to pin down environmental saboteurs and bring them all to the bar of justice.”  

Principe identified the suspects as Ellen Agabao, Erick Nathaniel, Glenn Namuka Litauen, Villamor Aten-an, and Armando Mariñas, all from Zambales; Alvin Ramos and Rodolfo Bautista from Nueva Ecija; and Albert Teodoro from Bataan.  

The eight were accused of violating Section 3 of Presidential Decree 953 which penalizes the “unauthorized cutting, destruction, damaging and injuring of certain trees, plants and vegetation along public roads, in plazas, parks other than national parks, school premises, other public ground or place, on banks of rivers or creeks, along roads in land subdivisions,” he said.

They were also accused of violating the Chainsaw Act of 2002, which requires the registration of chainsaws with the DENR, he added.

Principe said violators of PD 953 face a jail term of up to two years and a fine of at least P5,000, and those of the Chainsaw Act of 2002, imprisonment of up to eight years and fine of up to P50,000.

Principe called on Lt. Gen. Isagani Cachuela of the Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command to assist the DENR in forest protection and law enforcement, particularly in “sealing off from illegal loggers” the Angat watershed and the Peñaranda and Sumac­bao rivers at the tri-boundary of Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, and Rizal. – With Ric Sapnu