TUBLAY, Benguet – Police seized undocumented lumber worth more than P100,000 here on Thursday, May 11.
Police Col. Damian Olsim, Benguet police chief, said lawmen conducting a checkpoint flagged down an Elf truck for inspection but it turned around.
Lawmen chased the truck until it was cornered in Barangay Labey here.
The truck was inspected and police found 400 pieces of pine lumber measuring 2"x3"x10” with a volume of 2,000 board feet and an estimated market value of P104,000.
They asked the driver, Rheygan Sote, 21, Caliking, Atok, Benguet, for pertinent documents but he failed to show any.
Sote was arrested and taken to the Tublay police station. He faces charges for violation of Presidential Decree 705 or the Revised Forestry Code of the Philippines.
The truck and pine lumber were brought to the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) in Buguias, this province, for proper disposition.