P4-billion hot logs seized in Cagayan Valley given to DepEd

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines  – Hot logs worth more than P4 billion that were seized in Cagayan Valley have been turned over to the Department of Education (Dep­Ed) for use in the construction of classrooms and other educational facilities.

Of the seized contraband, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said P3 billion worth of illegally sawn lumber were turned over in the latter half of 2010 alone.

The DENR said the remaining P1.2 billion worth of seized logs in the region were donated to the DepEd this year, in the process lessening the region’s backlog of classrooms, chairs, desks, tables, bookshelves, and filing cabinets.

The contraband totaled 219,000 board feet of logs, which the DENR and other law-enforcement agencies and Bantay Gubat volunteers confiscated for lack of documents. Benjamin Tumaliuan, DENR regional executive director, said 54 trucks, vans and jeepneys, which his office impounded for transporting hot lumber, were also turned over to the national government this year.

Meanwhile, the DENR said the volume of hot logs seized this year – 934 cubic meters valued at nearly P10 million – was significantly less than in previous years.

It attributed this to its intensified crackdown, along with other government units and the private sector, on illegal logging in line with President Aquino’s order for a logging moratorium nationwide.

“There are no sacred cows on the implementation of the logging ban in the region. We have to protect our remaining forest cover,” he said.