A barangay kagawad has tagged an employee of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources as the financier of the illegal cutting of narra trees in Purok Cobra, Brgy.Igmaya-an, Don Salvador Benedicto, the Task Force Ilahas said.

SPO4 Walter Nepomuceno, Task Force Ilahas team leader, yesterday said Igmayaan barangay kagawad Willy Toledano has claimed that Bonifacio Yude, a DENR employee assigned in Don Salvador Benedicto, had contracted a chain saw operator to cut narra trees, and facilitated the delivery of 563 board feet to unknown buyers in Bacolod City.

The narra trees were cut and taken from a property formerly owned by the Fuentebella family, that had been placed under the government agrarian reform program and distributed to 13 beneficiaries, among them Arturo Gregorio.

Investigations by the Task Force Ilahas and 612th Provincial Mobile Group headed by Chief Inspector Calixto Mabugat showed that there was a transaction between Gregorio and Toledano, as well as Yude, to cut the narra trees in the place.

Nepomuceno said the cutting and slicing of narra trees took place on Aug. 26, followed by the hauling of finished forest products to an unknown buyer in Bacolod City on Aug. 31. Yude gave P14,000 to Gregorio while Toledano only got P1,000 for facilitating documents needed for the cutting of the narra, Nepomuceno said.

Yude was not at the DENR office in Don Salvador Benedicto when operatives of the TFI and 612nd PMG went there yesterday.

Mabugat, 612nd PMG commander, said Joan Gerangaya, chief of the Bacolod Community Environment and Natural Resources office, told him they had not issued any permit to cut narra trees, except those done in Brgy. Kumaliskis, Salvador Benedicto.

Nepomuceno said the Bacolod CENR Office yesterday issued an apprehension receipt for the remaining forest products cut in Brgy.Igmayaan, Salvador Benedicto.*GPB

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