bandido
Free Rider
Stress Free
Posts: 290
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Post by bandido on Mar 13, 2006 13:04:32 GMT 8
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Post by marcs on Mar 13, 2006 13:17:07 GMT 8
not just concerns, we should also do something about this. the article is very disheartening, showing how greed and corruption produce a blatant disregard for human life and the environement. as the quest for money continues, more and more we'll see our beloved trails erode away in the name of progress. what can be done?
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Post by Ben Dover on Mar 13, 2006 14:03:50 GMT 8
bandido, if i'm not mistaken we were talking about this when we were on our way to puray yesterday...indiferrence and corruption dehins lang sa govnt pati kaliwa...when i first saw irid december 3 years ago it was lush, green and foggy...i was constantly moving to maintain my body temperature because it was so cold...now it looks like the rest of montalban...patches of treeless areas everwhere..hot and ugly.
yesterday, i was walking alone on the trail going to the falls when i met a group of around 8 people including children...they were carrying wood...cut wood! it means they already have a processing facility right up the mountain and using the locals to transport the lumber.
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Post by marcs on Mar 13, 2006 14:07:11 GMT 8
shucks I also remembered during our Licao-Licao Irid ride, On1e and I thought we had chanced upon a sari-sari store, turns out the shack was just a storage facility for charcoal! and there were many others along the way!
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bandido
Free Rider
Stress Free
Posts: 290
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Post by bandido on Mar 13, 2006 14:48:14 GMT 8
Tolits, that's what I also thought yesterday when I saw the local folks carrying finished product lumber, there could be a secret sawmill somewhere in the area where the illegal logger process the logs.
I noticed also the folks carrying the lumber are teenagers, below 18 yrs old boy. The illegal loggers were also exploiting child labour.
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Post by plankton_dash on Mar 13, 2006 15:30:07 GMT 8
Tsk, tsk, tsk...so sad to hear this bit of news. For the record, I'm not true-blue Montalban-native (I am originally from Pateros), but I've been living there for more than 8 years now - enough to call it "home" - and I've heard a lot of those stories of "too powerful" loggers & quarry operators since I settled there in '98 and so your reports about kids making a living out of so-called protected wood (turning into lumber) somehow doesn't surprise me anymore. Even then, the threat of landslide and flash floods was present, but thank God, there hasn't been a Guinsaugon-esque disaster that happened yet(!). What I'm afraid of is that even if such an incident occurs (knock on wood!), those people responsible for the rape of the environment won't stop because that's where their profit comes from. (OT: Look at "Wowowee") Decent folks, some of which I know personally, have tried to stop them but sad to say, those who wield more power & more money always get their way. Is it any wonder why NPA's are abundant in those mountains? What can we do? Well, like what Mr. Neal Cruz said, we can write and tell GMA herself, since the "powerful official" is allegedly a close relative or hers. We could also bring this matter to the media outfits, if only to turn up the heat on those responsible for these nature-abuses. I think we could also enlist the help of other groups who've had similar experiences and somehow managed to have some success in their cause. Just my two cents, my friends...
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Post by marcs on Mar 13, 2006 16:39:18 GMT 8
now this confuses me . . . what then are these NPAs doing? Could they be taking protection money/revolutionary tax as well?
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Post by Ben Dover on Mar 14, 2006 10:39:15 GMT 8
now this confuses me . . . what then are these NPAs doing? Could they be taking protection money/revolutionary tax as well? around a kilometer before puray near a school is an army post...in fact last sunday they were the ones who told me that bud and company beat us to puray..alam nila lumalabas at pumapasok...i would presume that outside that place is the npa area kasi palaging may skirmishes dyan...basta alam ko pareho silang walang ginagawa.
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