Inquirer
Last updated 05:35am (Mla time) 08/14/2006
Published on page A22 of the August 14, 2006 issue of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer
http://newsinfo.inq7.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view_article.php?article_id=15116
LUCENA CITY -- Officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Quezon province have allayed fears of environmentalist groups that the Malacañang-reinstated forest management contract would lead to the destruction of the Sierra Madre mountain range.
“Before TFPI (Timberland Forest Products Inc.) can start actual operation, it should first undergo the required public hearing to get the side of the community. The operation is still a long way to go,” Antonio Diwa, the community environment and natural resources officer based in Real town, told the Inquirer over the phone.
Diwa said a lot of documents must be submitted for approval before any forest management activities could be started.
“The company would still need to submit an environmental compliance certificate and resource management plans, among many other voluminous papers,” he stressed.
He clarified that it was not the DENR that reinstated the controversial forestry contract of the logging company owned by Bulacan logger Wilson Ng.
“It was a Malacañang decision. My office has nothing to do with it,” Diwa said.
He vowed to strictly monitor the activities of TFPI once it started operations.
“That IFMA (Integrated Forest Management Agreement) will not be an instrument nor will it be an avenue for any illegal logging activities. The company should strictly follow the terms and conditions specified in the contract,” Diwa said.
An IFMA is a contract entered into by the DENR and a qualified person to occupy and possess, in consideration of a specified rental, any forest land of the public domain to establish an industrial forest plantation.
There are two types of IFMA. One allows companies to plant and harvest trees in production forest while the other allows firms to cut trees in partially denuded areas before trees are planted.
“It’s one form of selective logging. An IFMA holder is allowed to cut mature, over-mature and defective trees inside the production forest but at the same time, they are also mandated to plant forest trees,” Diwa explained.
Environmentalist groups in Quezon protested when they learned on Thursday from a DENR regional official that Ng’s IFMA contract covering more than 36,000 hectares of land in Sierra Madre inside the province territorial jurisdiction had been approved with finality by an unidentified Palace official.
The IFMA has long been opposed by residents and local officials of Real, Infanta and General Nakar towns.
The 25-year IFMA was granted to Ng on Nov. 12, 2002, when Heherson Alvarez was then environment secretary.
Alvarez’s successor, Elisea Gozun, revoked the IFMA on Jan. 13, 2004 on grounds that “fraud, misrepresentation and omission of material facts” allegedly surrounded the contract.
Based on DENR records, TFPI’s IFMA was reinstated by the Office of the President on March 4, 2005, four months after the tragic flash floods and landslides in the three Quezon towns.
But the Palace held back its implementation after it was met with a howl of protest.
The left-wing fishermen alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) urged Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes to disclose the identities of alleged Malacañang officials behind the reinstatement of TFPI’s forestry contract.
“This is unfair to 1,000 farmers and fishermen who were killed by flash floods and landslides resulting from the environmental disaster in 2004 brought about by large-scale logging in Sierra Madre,” Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap said in a statement sent to the Inquirer.
Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon
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