DECADES OF ILLEGAL LOGGING BLAMED FOR FLASHFLOODS, LANDSLIDES

MANILA, Decemebr 2, 2004 (STAR) Decades of illegal logging have made flashfloods and landslides deadlier, which officials and environmentalists blamed as the cause of devastation wrought by a powerful storm that left nearly 600 people dead and missing.
Vowing to put a stop to deforestation, President Arroyo ordered yesterday the combined forces of the police and the military to put illegal loggers and their alleged financiers out of business.
"Illegal logging must now be placed in the order of most serious crimes against our people," the President said in a statement. "The series of landslides and flashfloods that hit several parts of the country should serve as a wake-up call for us to join hands in preserving our environment and stepping up reforestation."
Lawmakers, on the other hand, took it further by saying illegal logging masterminds should pay with their own lives for the massive death brought about by "their nefarious activities."
"The tragedies caused by illegal logging should serve as a basis for the meting of death penalty on those responsible for abusing our environment," said Davao Oriental Rep. Mayo Almario.
Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo noted existing laws have not stopped illegal logging, adding that a "reward system" should be put in place to help authorities curb illegal logging.
"We have to protect not only our environment but also the lives of our people," he said.
Illegal logging has caused deforestation in the past decades and has been exacerbated by a rapidly growing population and urbanization.
Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said the powerful storm code-named "Winnie," which hit the country’s east shortly after a typhoon ravaged the same area last week, caused so much death and destruction because there was no forest cover to hold mudslides that washed away roads, bridges and submerged whole towns.
"The real culprit is really the mud and the landslides," Soliman said. "The rains caused the flash floods, yes, but the soil could not hold up the water in the mountains."
Vice President Noli de Castro lamented that people have not learned from the 1991 floods that killed about 6,000 in Ormoc, Leyte, and which were made worse by logging.
"We have been criticizing illegal logging for a long time. We should not have waited for a tragedy like this," he said.
A recent US-funded project concluded that the Philippines was losing more than 100,000 hectares of forest every year. Other experts say less than three percent of the country’s primary forest remains intact.
The President’s order to crack down on illegal logging rests on the shoulders of Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Gen. Efren Abu and his counterpart in the Philippine National Police, Director General Edgar Aglipay.
Cutting short her trip to Laos where she attended the 10th Association of Southeast Asian Nations leaders summit, Mrs. Arroyo issued the directive after being apprised of the extent of damage caused by Winnie in the towns of Infanta, Nakar and Real, Quezon province.
"This is not only important to prevent further loss of lives and property in the path of natural calamities, it is vital to the preservation of our farms and the overall economic strength of our nation," she stressed.
The President was supposed to fly yesterday morning by helicopter to Real town where the most number of fatalities was recorded, but the trip was canceled due to continuing bad weather and zero visibility in landing areas.
Apart from Quezon, hundreds also died and went missing in floods and landslides in Nueva Ecija and Aurora provinces.
Illegally cut logs strewn the towns devastated by rampaging floodwaters from the Sierra Madre mountains and destroyed nearly everything in their path.
The government’s chief weather forecaster, Frisco Nilo, said the soil at the foothills of Sierra Madre, facing the Pacific Ocean, was already saturated with water from the previous typhoon when heavy rains loosened the earth and caused it to tumble down.
Officials said many of the victims died after being washed away by swiftly cascading soil and logs late Monday, when most residents were asleep.
Environment Secretary Michael Defensor promised an investigation into illegal logging, forming a task force to be headed by retired Army Lt. Gen. Alfonso Dagudag.
In addition to this, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in coordination with the AFP and the PNP will also train and arm the country’s 3,000 forest rangers protecting some seven million hectares of forest grounds.
There is only one forest ranger for every 350 hectares of forest land, Defensor said. "We will have to arm our forest rangers. They are very few," he added.
Amid fears of the effects of the storm on prices of basic goods, Mrs. Arroyo convened an emergency meeting in Malacañang with De Castro and Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, as well as with other members of the price monitoring council.
"Asikasuhin ang presyo, iyan ang importante ngayon (Attend to the effects on prices, that is important at this point)," the President said.
An estimated P140 million worth of corn crops and P60 million worth of palay were lost due to Winnie, Yap reported to the President.
But he said the palay crops destroyed, which represented 12,000 hectares, constituted a small fraction of the total rice hectarage in Central Luzon of 275,000 hectares.
After presiding over the Malacañang meeting, the President motored to Villamor Air Base in Pasay City where she inspected the relief goods to be flown by four Philippine Air Force helicopters.
From Villamor, Mrs. Arroyo, accompanied by Soliman, proceeded to the headquarters of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.
There, Defense Undersecretary Ernesto Carolina briefed the President about the latest action being taken by the inter-agency body to assist the typhoon victims, as well as contingency preparations for incoming typhoon "Yoyong."
Carolina told the President that the NDCC has already asked the departments of agriculture and public works and highways to immediately implement their respective rehabilitation assistance to affected farmlands and public infrastructure damaged by Winnie.
Among those destroyed was the Infanta-Nakar Bridge in Quezon.
Unusually high rainfall
Besides illegal logging, unusually high rainfall and geography have also contributed to the devastating effects of the storms that have lashed the Philippines in the past weeks, environmentalists said.
Geography has played its part too. The archipelago of some 7,000 islands sits astride Southeast Asia’s typhoon belt and is usually the first country to be hit by typhoons from the Pacific Ocean.
Infanta, one of the hardest-hit areas, is usually the first port of call for an average of 19 typhoons and tropical storms that hit the Philippines every year, said Nilo.
He said the latest storm was the 25th to veer into the Philippines this year, making it an exceptional year.
Government hydrologist Richard Orendain said although the residents of Infanta and nearby Real and General Nakar are used to typhoons, what they probably failed to anticipate was the consequences of the amount of rainfall that fell on the region over the past week.
Orendain told Agence France Presse (AFP) that in one 24-hour period on Sunday some 144 millimeters of rain fell over the region. The monthly average for November is 611 millimeters.
"Even though it was not a strong typhoon, the destructive impact was magnified by the amount of rain that fell over the area," he said.
"We can’t really say whether illegal logging was the main cause, though it may have contributed to it."
Orendain said the ground water table had "probably reached saturation point" noting that the area was hard hit by another storm just a week earlier.
"So the water had nowhere to go," he said.
Forest economist Lourdes Catindig of the DENR told AFP the southern Sierra Madre, which runs through the eastern section of the main island of Luzon, still has some forest cover left.
"We issued a logging moratorium in the area in the 1970s," she pointed out.
Sacrifice ‘pork’
Meanwhile, Senate President Franklin Drilon asked yesterday his colleagues and congressmen to realign a portion of their "pork barrel" funds to the needs of the typhoon victims.
Drilon came up with the idea as also a way of telling the people that the controversial Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) "can be used this way."
But he did not say how much of the P70 million of pork for House representatives and P200 million for senators should be set for calamity funds.
"Maybe a portion of the PDAF can be realigned for these calamities. I think the public will understand and appreciate that," Drilon said.
Opposition Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile supported Drilon’s call.
"I have no objection," he said, although he opposed the proposal of Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. for a 25-year moratorium on logging on the Sierra Madre.
Pimentel said a new law should be enacted by Congress that would impose the 25-year ban on commercial logging. He noted the "continuous apathy of political leaders toward the adoption of such drastic measure would spell more ecological disasters of catastrophic proportions in the future."
Pimentel also called on Defensor to cancel all logging permits and close down illegal sawmills in Sierra Madre to arrest the denudation of the already thinning forest cover.
This move, he said, would also save critical water resources of Metro Manila and surrounding provinces.
"Secretary Defensor should pursue an iron-fist policy in running after unscrupulous field (DENR) officers who are conniving with and protecting illegal loggers," the senator said.
"As a consequence of incessant forest destruction, at the rate of about 200,000 hectares a year, our people are paying a heavy price in terms of loss of lives and properties," Pimentel said.
Sen. Richard Gordon has called for an investigation into the disaster.
"For years the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has failed to go after the illegal loggers operating in many parts of the country," he told reporters Tuesday.
Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. meanwhile said local government units (LGUs) should have a more responsive disaster management program to attend to the needs of those affected.
Saying it is no secret that the Philippines is a typhoon-prone country, Villar said: "We should not be caught off-guard anymore when these happen. We should be prepared to deal with calamities even before it happens."
The senator has filed a bill that would require all LGUs to set aside 25 percent of their calamity funds for preparedness action.
In another development, the DENR has ordered all provincial environment and natural resources officers (PENROs) to warn those living along rivers against the coming of Yoyong, which Pagasa earlier said might turn into a super typhoon.
"I have directed the PENROs assigned along the typhoon path to determine vulnerable areas and advise residents about the danger," Defensor said.
"This will be a standard procedure from now on when there is a typhoon threat," he added.
Defensor identified areas in Catanduanes which are prone to mudslides, flashfloods and landslides as Viga, Caramoran, Pandan, San Miguel, Baras and Gigmoto.
The others identified were Manito and Tiwi towns in Albay, Sangay and Lagonoy in Camarines Sur, Mercedes, Capalonga Basud and Labo in Camarines Norte and Bulusan, Sta. Magdalena and Magallanes in Sorsogon. – With reports from Marichu Villanueva, Jose Rodel Clapano, Mike Frialde, AFP

source:
 http://www.newsflash.org/2004/02/ht/ht004846.htm