Truckload of hot lumbers seized anew by authorities in Butuan City

by Ben Serrano

     May 12, 2011

BUTUAN CITY (PNA) -It seems illegal loggers in this Timber Corridor of the Philippines continue to defy executive order no. 23 of President Aquino  as illegal wood fletches hauled by a cargo truck without documents were confiscated anew by police operatives in a rural barangay here Tuesday morning.

Caraga Police regional information office report claimed that at about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday responding Butuan City cops headed by Police Senior Inspector ESTELITO LAMOSTRE GERMAN JR proceeded to Barangay Bilay, Butuan City to validate information authorities received that a truck travelling from a wood processing plants in the city was  allegedly loaded with hot lumbers.

Police said responding cops found the cargo truck bearing plate number GMP 911 was loaded with more or less seventy (70) pieces of hardwood lawaan flitches in various sizes, shapes  and volumes illegally transported.

Under E.O. 23 only wood fletches of planted wood species are allowed transport, naturally grown trees’ lumbers or wood fletches are not allowed or ban.

Police said upon verification logging truck was owned by certain Ruben Tagalog, a businessman and resident of Barangay Dagkutan, Esperanza, Agusan del Sur. The truck was driven by Crisanto Flaviano Alcontin a resident of Barangay Salvacion, Butuan City

And since the driver and the owner failed to present documents that their cargo was legal, authorities has brought said logging truck to Butuan City Police Station.

It was not known on whether criminal charges were filed against the driver and the owner of the logging truck.

Many in the past, seized cargo trucks brought to DENR and police compounds with their cargoes, illegally cut logs or hard wood fletches suddenly vanished into thin air with authorities alleged they don’t know where it go.

The indigenous people who own ancestral lands where most if not all illegally cut logs seized by authorities originally come from now wanted those confiscated lumbers or logs return to them. Lumads clamor majority of them are homeless and confiscated lumbers return to them can help them construct houses, their school buildings, clinics and tribal houses.

Despite of the lumads plea, DENR and the law enforcers turned over seized logs or lumbers to Dep Ed for the construction of school buildings. But due to no availability of funds to haul, cut lumbers or logs into smaller pieces most of the seized stayed rotten at log pond areas of the government.

Tuesday’s confiscation of illegal lumbers was the 25^th seizure since the start of the year 2011 in Butuan City alone and the 57^th in the entire Caraga region.

And because no alternative source of livelihood, lumber or wood business including mining are the major source of livelihood of the people in Caraga region.  (PNA/Ben Serrano)