Task Force Sagip Gubat Constituted
December 20, 2004
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez has constituted Task Force Sagip Gubat to prosecute illegal logging cases.
In Department Order No, 553, Secretary Gonzalez designated recently appointed Assistant Chief State Prosecutor Richard Anthony Fadullon to head the task force that will prosecute cases falling within the scope of Presidential Decree No. 705 otherwise known as the Revised Forestry Code of the Philippines as amended by Executive Order No. 277.
ACSP Fadullon shall head an 11-man task force and shall be under the supervision of Undersecretary Macabangkit Lanto.
The task shall conduct preliminary investigation, reinvestigation or inquest of cases referred by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to the Department, and when the evidence warrants, to file charges and prosecute the same before the appropriate courts.
Recently, illegal loggers were blamed for the denudation of forests in Aurora and Quezon provinces which caused the death of more than a thousand people and thousands of others wounded and rendered homeless. Loss and destruction of property has been estimated to millions of pesos.
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