4 DENR Caraga execs face raps for illegal logging, mining in Butuan watershed areas

by Ben Serrano

June 15, 2009

BUTUAN CITY- Four top officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Caraga Region are now in hot water after management of the Butuan City Water District headed by its General Manager Engineer Anselmo Sangtian filed negligence, grave misconduct and unjustifiable refusal to perform duties against Regional Executive Director Edilberto Buiser, Butuan City Community Environment and Natural Resources Officer Achilles Ebron, Cabadbaran CENRO Raul Rosales and Agusan del Norte PENRO Rosendo Asunto.

The watershed area which covers some 4,300 hectares located at Barangay Anticala this city that extended up to two towns of Agusan del Norte, Cabadbaran and RTR, was declared by the national government as extremely protected areas therefore no cutting of trees much more mining activities even small-scale allowed.

. It is the only source of potable water supply to some 300,000 residents of Butuan City and nearby environs..

In its four pages complaint affidavit dated March 3, 2009 filed before Office of the Ombudsman Mindanao in Davao City recently, the water firm complained said DENR officials failed to make any investigation and/or verification including naming names of the perpetrators who brought heavy equipment, logging and hauling trucks to the highly protected watershed area.

Group of selected newsmen and community leaders mostly members of the Association of Barangay Captains of Butuan City who went to do ocular inspection in the area have witnessed traces of environmental destructions in the area.

Local residents and barangay officials in the area when interviewed by some newsmen and barangay captains opted to remain silent as to the identities of the perpetrators claiming that financers of illegal logging and mining activities were allegedly personalities of high places in the society and some were allegedly local politicians.

Butuan City Water District in its complaint said that despite of so many complaint letters officially received by the Office of the DENR Regional Executive Director and despite many meetings and conferences designed to address the problem, still no investigation or verifications were done.

The water firm claimed they have complete and concrete evidences which were all submitted to the DENR copy furnished the City Government of Butuan that indeed rampant illegal logging and mining activities are being conducted inside the watershed areas.

But the same, the complaint affidavit alleged by which a complete copy and photos were furnished to this writer, were not officially acted upon, perpetrators not identified and prosecuted as no filing of cases were filed and worst such illegal activities continued.

The complaint affidavit said that apart from illegal logging and mining activities, activities of illegal construction of road are also being done in the protected watershed area which cuts and transverses in the only source of potable water supply of Butuan.

Evidences of said illegal construction of road activities were also submitted to the DENR and Butuan City Government long time ago sometime in April 2008.

The last photos of illegal activities done inside said watershed area was taken by inspecting BCWD workers last February 22, 2009 and others just recently when they caught huge stockpile of illegally cut hardwood species found at the middle of the watershed area.

“Clearly there is an on-going destructive activity inside the watershed despite many years of bringing these concerns to concern government agencies and yet perpetrators were not identified” Sangtian said.

In the power point presentation, the BCWD official pinpoints in the map the protected watershed areas where the illegal mining, illegal logging and illegal construction of road occurs.

In November 2008, the Butuan City Government wrote a letter to the Butuan City Water District denying the on-going more than ten kilometers road construction and rehabilitation at the middle of the watershed area were not sanctioned by city government and it is not government road project.

But same report do not explained if Butuan City Government have conducted another investigation to identify who did order the illegal road construction, identify workers, who was the owner or owners of the many heavy equipment like tractors, pay loaders and others doing the road project or rehabilitation.

It also do not explained what to do on the on-going road construction which includes arrest or filing of criminal cases against those who destroy the Barangay Taguibo watershed areas since it is declared protected area.

BCWD found out that part of the more than ten kilometers road project were old logging roads.

During the news conference, Sangtian said that based on the reports of his men in the field, the roads were constructed for purposes of hauling mineral ores and illegally cut wood trees.

But the BCWD report also failed to identify the perpetrators.

The 4,300 hectares government-declared watershed and protected areas, according to the BCWD official, Engr. Anselmo Sangtian were discovered by geologists to have huge amount of deposits of gold, manganese, copper, black sand, nickel and other kind of minerals.

The DENR in its January 6, 2009 official report signed by Community Environment and Natural Resources Officer Raul Rosales confirmed the BCWD report and admitted illegal construction of road, illegal mining and timber poaching activities in the area.

The report claimed, DENR personnel made some confiscation of illegally cut logs and sawn lumber in the area including manganese ores.

But like the other reports, the DENR report did not identify perpetrators of the crime in destructing the watershed area which is the only source of drinking water of inhabitants of Butuan City and its 86 barangays.

Despite BCWD warnings that possible presence of toxic materials due mining activities may endanger lives of water consumers, the more than 300,000 city residents of Butuan remained silent of the issue.and do not even mind it as if busy in their daily lives.

The moral and church groups including the so called militant and progressive sectors are silent as a lamb too

Illegal logging and mining are always happening in Caraga Region anyway, they said and added it is the duty of government to investigate it anyway.