The revolutionary movement against logging
To obscure its responsibility in continuing to promote large-scale logging and the export of lumber, the Arroyo regime has shifted the blame to the New People's Army and the revolutionary movement for the denudation of the Sierra Madre mountains and the death and destruction that occurred in the wake of the recent typhoons. The Arroyo regime has resorted to utter lies to malign the NPA. It shirks responsibility for the loss of more than a thousand lives and the economic displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.
In unity with the toiling masses, the New People's Army has been exerting efforts, wherever and whenever it can, to stop the wanton destruction of the environment by preventing or fighting the operations of logging and mining companies and meting punishment on military forces that serve as their security forces.
The record shows that it is the NPA, in conjunction with the revolutionary masses, that have been most militant and resolute in the struggle against the massive destruction of the environment.
| Applying democratic methods, the Party, the people's army and the revolutionary people's organizations have also gone through the extent of actively promoting and advancing sustainable agriculture to more than compensate for the revolutionary restrictions even on small logging operations of some forest region residents. At the same time, the Party and revolutionary organizations have also advised small swidden farmers or kaingeros on correct methods to ensure the protection of the forests. |
The CPP, the NPA and the revolutionary movement have taken strong measures to warn perpetrators of wanton logging operations, whether licensed or not by the reactionary state. The NPA has imposed fines as a form of penalty on logging companies that violate the people's rights as well as the policies of the revolutionary government. It has carried out measures to punish the incorrigible ones.
In the 1970s, the NPA intensified its tactical offensives in the Cordillera region to assist in the struggles against Cellophil and the Chico River Dam project.
In 1985, the New People's Army in Cagayan Valley carried out Oplan Lappat, a campaign to defend the forests from further depredation by logging companies. In 1991, the NPA launched a coordinated effort to punish the inveterate plunderers of the forests by disabling all logging equipment in Gattaran, Cagayan and Luna, Kalinga-Apayao.
In 1995, the National Democratic Front (NDF)-Mindanao declared war on logging to underscore the revolutionary forces' commitment to protect forest resources. Revolutionary mass organizations are mobilized to ensure that policies with regard to logging are strictly followed by logging concessionaires. The policies include, among others, limiting the allowable volume to be logged, prohibiting the cutting of immature trees, banning logging in watershed areas and requiring loggers to plant trees and contribute to the welfare of the masses in the area. In other cases, logging companies are discouraged to continue with their operations.
Since the last decade, the revolutionary forces in Southern Tagalog have been carrying out a campaign to encourage small loggers to resume agricultural production and intensify their struggle for genuine land reform. This addresses the fact that small loggers, contemptuously called "carabao loggers", have been forced to sell their labor to big logging companies after they were uprooted from their lands by massive land conversion and land grabbing in the early 1990s.
In December last year, an NPA unit raided a logging camp of Pacific Timber Export Corporation (PATECO) in Dinapigue, Isabela. Several bulldozers and 20 trucks laden with logs were set afire. They encountered forces of the Philippine Army 5th ID guarding trucksfull of timber. In September 2000, Red fighters stopped the operations of Liberty Logging Corp. in Jones, Isabela by razing the company's equipment.
Applying democratic methods, the Party, the people's army and the revolutionary people's organizations have also gone through the extent of actively promoting and advancing sustainable agriculture to more than compensate for the revolutionary restrictions even on small logging operations of some forest region residents. At the same time, the Party and revolutionary organizations have also advised small swidden farmers or kaingeros on correct methods to ensure the protection of the forests.
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