Paje ties to illegal loggers bared too

When it rains it pours on Environment and Natural Resources Sec. Ramon Paje. In Congress his nomination is being opposed for abetting a pollutive, sham small-scale mine in western Mindanao. At the Ombudsman he is being accused of protecting illegal loggers in eastern Mindanao. It’s a sour cap to a career as undersecretary to seven environment chiefs under three Presidents.

Paje’s detractors are unrelenting. No less than a predecessor, now governor of Zamboanga del Sur, is linking him to a tycoon who employs mountain tribesmen as front for illegal mining (see Gotcha, 7 Nov. 2012). And his own subordinates are charging him with using even more ethnic folk as cover for illegal logging in Agusan, Surigao, and Davao.

The complaint at the Ombudsman was filed incognito by “Concerned Officers and Members of the DENR.” But it is too detailed to ignore. A Chinese-Filipino businessman is quoted as outlining the modus operandi for illegal logging in Agusan. Financiers allegedly put up the front companies and tribesmen; DENR timber license agreements are issued for 40-percent cuts of the dirty profits.

Paje allegedly had ignored as well the cries of tree farmers in two towns of Surigao del Norte against woodcutters. The aggrieved farmers were slain in an ambush. In Davao Oriental, two prominent politicos are known to be bankrolling the deforestation. For Paje to not know this is strange, the accusers aver.

This is happening even though President Noynoy Aquino forbade all logging in natural and residual forests starting February 2011. Paje is supposed to enforce it, assisted by the Secretaries of Interior and Defense, and the chiefs of the National Police and the Armed Forces. Given the construction boom, such ban should have seen price surges in wood products. That lumber rates have remained stable lends credence to charges that logging goes on illicitly.

A plainer proof of unbridled tree cutting was last December’s flooding of mountainside Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities, in which 1,300 people died. It was like the mudslides that killed hundreds in over-logged Infanta and Real, Quezon, in 2004, for which then-undersecretary Paje publicly was rebuked.

Paje’s anti-illegal logging task force is being blamed for the mess. Weeks before perishing in a plane crash last August, interior secretary Jesse Robredo had confronted Paje’s deputy, a retired general, for consorting with timber men. After Robredo’s demise, Paje exonerated the general, saying the latter was responsible for confiscating 12 million cubic meters of hot logs.

Too late, for by then Robredo had initiated investigations of five mayors in Agusan, and sacked two police colonels. A separate probe was started as well of the discovery of 4,000 hot logs worth about P12 million.

DENR employee-union bosses disavow any role in the Ombudsman raps. Paje’s publicist sent out press releases to the effect. The DENR notched a neutral rating of -1 percent under Paje this year. This, he brags, is a big step-up from the -34 percent under immediate predecessors Michael Defensor and Lito Atienza during the Arroyo tenure. Yet he had served them as undersecretary for operations, adviser on mining and forestry, and CEO of the Mineral Resources Development Corp. and the Natural Resources Development Corp.

Paje has risen from the ranks, as lowly forester to the top honcho, garnering many public service awards in the process. Supposedly it was Defensor and a religious sect that is interested in land deals who endorsed him to the Aquino administration. Murmurs in Malacañang have it that he was to be replaced last June, but averted it through the right connections.

The Ombudsman complaint, filed before then, attributes to Paje other scams. Allegedly he undervalued at P12,000 per square meter the prime lot of a DENR subsidiary at posh The Fort in Metro Manila, where land fetches P40,000 per square meter. Too, that he participated in the illegal leasing of tens of thousands of hectares in Palawan for pasture concessions. And, that he leased for a song DENR real estate in Manila, Cebu and Mount Diwalwal.

Paje also is chided at the Congress Commission on Appointment for illegally creating a position of assistant secretary for anti-corruption and internal audit. The holder of the post supposedly is a midnight appointee-kin of the former President.   

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The Tzu Chi charity foundation will hold its annual fund-raising bazaar on Nov. 10 and 11, 9 a.m-6 p.m., at its hospital compound (formerly the Girls Town) in Bacood, Sta. Mesa, Manila. Youth, university and community volunteers will sell hand-painted T-shirts, home-cooked eats, and handicraft. Visitors will be toured around the free eye and dental clinics, organic garden, and recycling-livelihood centers. Bring your family and friends.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

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