Pimentel reminded President Arroyo about her pledge to enforce a total ban on commercial logging operations in December last year in the aftermath of the killer floods and landslides in logging towns in Aurora along the Sierra Madre mountain range, which killed about 1,000 persons.

He expressed alarm over the decision of the administration, through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, to lift the 16-year-old logging ban in Eastern Samar by allowing the San Jose Timber Corp. (SJTC) to cut trees in a 95,770-hectare logging concession in Eastern Samar which falls within the protected watershed area and nature park.

Underscoring the urgency of protecting the country’s endangered forests, Pimentel pointed out that the country had a 70 percent old-growth forest cover in the year 1900, but this was reduced to only 18.3 percent in 1999.

He said forest experts have projected that at the rate trees are being cut and converted into lumber and wood products, only 6.6 percent of the country’s forest cover will be left by the year 2010.

Pimentel asked the President to support the immediate passage by Congress of the long-pending bill prescribing a 25-year total log ban if she is really determined to save the thinning forests and prevent ecological disasters.

He also asked Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Michael Defensor to speak up and justify before the people his decision to allow SJTC to resume logging operations in Eastern Samar which will lead to the destruction of the forests which were restored after a 16-year ban on logging in the province.

SJTC is reportedly owned by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile. The minority leader noted that the forest concession in Eastern Samar was obtained by SJTC during the Martial Law period. It was suspended in 1989 by then President Corazon Aquino after floods and landslides caused widespread devastations in terms of loss of lives and properties.