Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu condemned two separate violent acts against a forester and policemen who where conducting operations against illegal logging activities in Aurora and Northern Samar.

“We vehemently denounce any kind of violent acts inflicted on our defenders of the environment, especially at a time when we are all dealing with an unprecedented public health crisis,” Cimatu said in a statement on Tuesday.

Cimatu is seeking swift justice for Forest Management Specialist II Danilo Pascasio, who is currently fighting for his life after being brutally attacked by an illegal logging suspect in Aurora province, as well as patrolmen Jessie Golondrina and Edwin Fernando Velarde, who both died while conducting an operation against three suspected timber poachers in Northern Samar. 

Both incidents took place last Sept. 27 and 26 respectively.

Pascasio was shot several times in front of his house at Barangay Calabuanan in Baler town by a suspect identified as Dennis Ruzol.

Ruzol was arrested on Sept. 24, three days before the incident, for violating the country’s forestry law but managed to post bail on the same day. 

Pascasio sustained nine bullet wounds, one of the bullets pierced in his liver and pancreas.

He immediately underwent an operation to remove the bullets from his body and is currently at the intensive care unit of a hospital in Cabanatuan City.

“To assault an environmental worker, who is just doing his job amid this COVID-19 pandemic, is utterly inhumane and unjust,” Cimatu said.

The police are now conducting manhunt operations against Ruzol.

In a report received by the DENR, according to Aurora Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer Alfredo Collado, Pascacio played a major role in 11 anti-illegal timber poaching operations from June 6 to Sept. 24.

One operation resulted in the arrest and filing of charges against Ruzol and two others, and confiscation of 422 pieces or 4,865 board feet of illegally manufactured lumber, one elf truck, one van, two chainsaws, and a tricycle. 

Meanwhile, Golondrina and Velarde were killed in a gunfight while securing a Masbate-bound pump boat carrying over 11,000 board feet of undocumented lauan timber they recovered from suspected illegal loggers in the coastal town of San Isidro in Northern Samar.

DENR-Eastern Visayas Regional Executive Director Tirso Parian said the two policemen were part of the composite team put together by the agency as part of its intensified campaign against illegal loggers in the area.

Parian said the incident was a result of an 11-day operation, which started on Sept. 17, in response to reports from concerned citizens about the shipment of unlawful forest products bound for Masbate and the presence of an illegal boat yard at Barangay Palanit.

Also in May, forester Fernando Polenio was shot dead by an unidentified assailant in Palo town in Leyte, while doing field work amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2019, four environmental workers were also killed while performing their duties.

Cimatu has been pushing for the creation of an Enforcement Bureau under the DENR to be more effective in stopping environmental crimes, such as illegal logging and smuggling of wildlife species.