EDITORIAL – Hubris

ASSISTANT secretary Mario Mendoza, now the newly appointed regional director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in the Caraga Region, was reported to have expressed disappointment that no illegal logger has been convicted, despite the thousands of illegally-cut logs and sawn lumber confiscated in the region since 2010.
“We’ve been boasting millions of board feet, hundreds and thousands of logs in inches, but not a single conviction here in Caraga. These illegal operators are becoming more confident in committing this crime because they feel that they can get away with it. If this remains, Caraga has no future,” Mendoza was quoted by MindaNews as saying.
Stressing the need for putting illegal loggers and their accomplices behind bars, the DENR secretary vowed to go after the big financiers.
Earlier, retired Major Gen. Renato Miranda, head of the presidential Anti-Illegal Logging Task Force (AILTF), gave an update on the nationwide campaign against illegal logging. In the past 18 months, P750 million worth of timber and logs, consisting of some 21 million board feet, had been confiscated along with 218 trucks used in the illegal activity.
Miranda reported that 670 cases have been filed already, but that there were
only 97 convictions so far across the country.
Whether Miranda’s achievement will be peanuts or monumental is of no moment. To the environmentalists and keen observers, it’s now Mendoza’s turn to prove his worth as the new czar of DENR Caraga. In no time at all, they’ll know whether Mendoza is capable of putting his money where his mouth is, to use a tired cliché.
And speaking of money—especially, oodles and oodles of it—we already know as early as now where, and how, Mendoza’s boast will end (haha!).