The Department of Labor & Employment in Negros Oriental disclosed the wooden keels that the Department of Environment & Natural Resources had confiscated earlier were intended for beneficiaries of its livelihood program.
Maritess Mercado, provincial DOLE officer, however, said it is the barangay chairmen of the six barangays of Tayasan, Negros Oriental, who are now being investigated as the project was turned over to them earlier.
Mercado explained that the DOLE had allocated almost one million pesos for motor bancas for fishermen’s associations in six barangays in Tayasan, and the barangays were given specifications for the bancas.
The beneficiaries are the barangays of Sta. Cruz, Lutay, Poblacion, Palaslan, Matuod ang Tamao, said Rubie Cempron, DOLE project coordinator.
According to Cempron, it was clearly stipulated in the agreement signing with the barangays that Sta. Clara, a certain type of marine plywood, must be used for the bancas.
However, it was discovered following operations conducted by the DENR, that these bancas, or the wooden keels, were instead made of lauan and almaciga, hardwood tree species believed to have been illegally cut from a natural forest.
In that operation in the evening of Feb. 10, DENR operatives seized 38 wooden keels (used as stern for bancas) from the coastal barangays of Matuog, Sta. Cruz, Lutay and Poblacion.
No one was arrested and nobody has claimed ownership of the illegal wooden keels even as the DENR here said they are now investigating the supposed supplier who might have been contracted to produce the bancas.
The DOLE, meanwhile, will have to insist that the recipients of the livelihood project produce the bancas as specified otherwise they might have to get the money back from the barangays as the agency is required to liquidate the funding allocation, said Mercado.
A meeting was held last week with the town mayor, Susano Ruperto, the DOLE and the beneficiaries/barangay captains regarding the incident. (JFP)
