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Friday, January 28, 2005
P4.5m hot lumber: 14 DENR officials in Cebu, 7 in Davao suspended
By Liberty A. Pinili
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
ENVIRONMENT Secretary Michael Defensor suspended 21 officials and personnel of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Davao and Cebu for a P4.5-million shipment of illegally cut wood.
Among those suspended for 90 days starting yesterday were Cebu Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer (Penro) Richard Abella, Community Environment and Natural Resources Officer (Cenro) Pedencio Carreon and 12 other personnel who inspected the shipment.
Order
Abella said they have yet to receive Defensor’s written order putting them under preventive suspension.
“But we welcome the administrative investigation so that our names will be cleared,” he said in a phone interview.
In a press conference at White Gold House yesterday morning, Defensor said he plans to file administrative charges of gross negligence against the 21 for the illegal shipment.
Directly responsible
He said, though, that seven Davao DENR officials, including the Penro and Cenro of that province, will face stiffer penalties as they were the ones directly responsible for the illegal shipment.
Abella said that following due process, they will be subjected to an administrative investigation for gross negligence.
Charges can only be filed if the investigation finds them guilty.
“We did nothing wrong. We did our jobs,” said Abella, adding that he is confident those in Cebu will be cleared of any liability.
Defensor said while he does not “want to falsely accuse” Cebu DENR officials of “conniving” with their counterparts in Davao for the transport of the illegal lumber, they should not have declared the shipment as properly documented.
The lumber arrived in Cebu City port from Davao Monday night on board LCM Condor. The Navy seized the cargo when the boat captain was unable to produce documents for it.
Defensor said the documents presented later to the authorities were recycled.
He alleged that there was connivance among Davao DENR officials involved to transport the illegally cut wood to Cebu.
Also yesterday, Task Force Sagip Kalikasan and Anti-Illegal Logging Task Group Chief Alfonso agudag filed criminal complaints against 18 persons—the shippers of the alleged illegally cut wood, the captain and the crew of LCM Condor—-for violating the Revised Forestry Code before the Office of the Prosecutor in Mandaue City.
But Abella told Sun.Star that the Penro and Cenro staff did not try to clear the seized cargo.
He said he and Carreon were told about the seized shipment while they were in the DENR 7 office in Banilad, Mandaue City attending a seminar.
Documented
He added that Carreon was at the Cebu City port area to check the cargo when he was informed that a representative of the shipper had submitted documents related to the shipment.
Carreon did not yet see the documents when he (Carreon) was interviewed by a local TV station.
Abella said what Carreon meant when he said that the shipment was “documented” was that there were documents submitted at the Cenro clearing section.
But when he inspected the documents later, he immediately found irregularities.
“So the next day (Jan. 25), I told Cenro Carreon that we declare the cargo illegal,” he added.
But Defensor said he “condemned” the Cebu Cenro and Penro for issuing a statement to the media that the shipment was documented (meaning, covered by proper documents) and for retracting the same declaration the next day.
“Masama ang loob ko sa Cebu… Why did you justify that illegal cargo?” he said.
(January 28, 2005 issue)
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