DEPARTMENT of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Sec. Ramon Paje wants local government units (LGUs) nationwide to intensify efforts to protect the environment against destruction, which he linked to man-made calamities that result in loss of life, limb and property.
“If LGUs can truly help protect the environment, such calamities won’t happen,” he said.
He raised the point as several sectors blamed illegal logging for the deadly and destructive flooding and landslides that struck Iligan City and other areas following onslaught of storm ‘Sendong’ there this month.
Reports already placed the storm’s death toll at over 1,000 people.
Extent of death and destruction from ‘Sendong’ prompted Malacanang to declare last week a state of national calamity.
Such declaration aims to hasten rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts of government as well as its local and international partners, Malacanang said.
Paje reported seeing logs that surfaced in Iligan City in the aftermath of ‘Sendong.’
“I already ordered such logs confiscated,” he said.
Such logs are believed to be from surrounding uplands and were swept by floodwaters downstream.
DENR earlier committed to donate its confiscated logs to Department of Education so these can be made into school furniture.
Earlier this year, Malacanang issued Executive Order 23 banning logging in natural forests nationwide.
Paje said Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) failed to immediately comply with such order, however.
He believes ARMM must comply with the logging ban as this applies nationwide.
Malacanang already ordered new ARMM Officer-in-Charge Mujiv Hataman to enforce such ban across the region, Paje said.
Hataman assured action to curb illegal logging in ARMM.
Officials concerned are already consolidating data on logging in ARMM so the problem could be addressed accordingly, he said.
Earlier, renowned lawyer Alan Paguia said the country could have lessened its logging-related calamities if government continued implementing Presidential Decree 1153 which the late president Ferdinand Marcos issued in 1977.
He said such decree requires all Filipinos 10 years old and over to plant trees every month for five consecutive years.
Experts noted greening denuded areas nationwide help increase forest cover while lessening soil erosion and landslide problems.
“That would have been a radical solution to what was already recognized then as urgent problems,” Paguia said.
He said the government scrapped the decree after Marcos’ ouster following the 1986 people power revolution. [PNA]
