Zambales gets 1K armchairs

ZAMBALES, Philippines — At least 1,000 units of school armchairs were turned over by the Regional Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR3) to three districts of the Department of Education (DepEd) in Candelaria, North Sta. Cruz and South Sta. Cruz towns in Zambales.

The recent turnover ceremony was attended by the DENR officials headed by regional executive director Maximo Dichoso together with Engr. Edwin Ebdane, local government unit (LGU) representative of Zambales; Zambales DepEd district supervisor Dr. Carmen Nano; and vice president of ERAMEN Minerals Inc. Engr. Emilio Figuerroa III, representing the Zambales Mining Alliance.

The Zambales Mining Alliance, on the strength of a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the DENR, agreed to fabricate the school armchairs out of the 864 pieces of wood confiscated by the DENR during a three-month anti-illegal logging operations at the boundary of Sta Cruz, Zambales and Mangatarem, Pangasinan.

Dichoso said the anti-illegal logging operations yielded a total of 1,729 pieces of abandoned illegally sourced lumber/flitches with an aggregate volume of 19,106 board feet.

The wood materials were retrieved and inventoried, and subsequently confiscated in favor of the government, he said.

Meanwhile, the 1,000 school armchairs were manufactured by the five companies under the Zambales Mining Alliance, namely Benguet Nickel Mines Inc. (BNMI); DMCI Mining Corp.; ERAMEN Minerals Inc.; LnL Archipelago Minerals, Inc.; and Zambales Diversified Metal Corp.