Editorial
The massacre continues
JUST when most everyone thought that the cutting of trees along the Manila National Road (from Rosales to Sison in Pangasinan) was finally over early last year after an agreement was reached to put an end to mad rush of the Department of Public Works to cut all the aged and shady trees, DPWH’s contractor started cutting live trees again like nobody else’s business.
It took some members of the environmentalist groups that were traveling in the area to see freshly cut stumps of trees and torn branches strewn by the side. And after some verifications were made, indeed, the DPWH’s contractor was armed with a permit to cut and remove DEAD and DYING trees, but not live trees.
A crime was undoubtedly committed along the MNR. As Ms. Virginia Pasalo of the Pangasinan Historical and Cultural Commission described it, a “massacre of old trees” took place. And as one might have expected, the guards at the gate, the Pangasinan Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office and the Urdaneta City Environment and Natural Resources Office were nowhere near the crime scene.
Was there a collusion between the Pangasinan PENRO and/or the Urdaneta CENRO and the DPWH/contractor to perpetrate a perfect crime by making the massacre appear as a “done deal” that nobody can undo, a situation deemed moot and academic?
Obviously, that’s the perpetrators’ dream wish. There is no bringing back dead trees along the highway but surely someone, somebody can be made responsible and accountable for the murder.
The provincial government should support the call of the environmentalist groups to make the contractor, the negligent officials of the DPWH, PENRO and CENRO accountable for this senseless murder of the beautiful surviving trees.
Opportunist stance
THE recent rallies staged by Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), asking for the resignation of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, ended in peace. De Lima did not resign, reiterating she would not quit in brushing off reports the INC had stopped its protests in exchange for government’s promise to sack De Lima.
The feisty Leila earned the ire of the INC leadership after she took cognizance of a complaint of illegal detention filed by an INC member against INC’s Council of Leaders. “I’m just doing my job,” De Lima said. Illegal detention is a non-bailable offense. But what was pathetic amid all the brouhaha was the opportunist stance displayed by Vice President Jojo Binay and Senators Chiz Escudero and Grace Poe. The trio, known to gun for the highest positions in the land in May, had unceremoniously thrown their support behind the INC. We are not surprised. The INC is famous for ordering its flock of nearly 1.2 million to vote as one in every election exercise.
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