Contractor, DPWH 7: We didn’t cut any trees

The S. Osmeña road from Gen. Maxilom Ext. to Juan Luna Blvd. used to have a center island with trees. (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)

WT Construction Inc. flatly denied cutting down any trees in the center island of S. Osmeña Road, where the disappearance of at least 79 trees planted by the Cebu city government has angered ecology advocates.

Engr. Adolfo Quiroga, project in charge, in an official reply to an ongoing inquiry, said that some trees “fell” due to “flooding” from a broken water pipe over the weekend from March 28 to 30.

He said they salvaged some trees, but most of the remaining trees were chopped into pieces or “made into firewood by nearby residents.”

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) 7 also denied any removal of trees taking place on March 30.

Two weeks after the sudden removal of trees was criticized by Cebu City Councilor Nida Cabrera, the whereabouts of almost 100 fire trees and other tree varieties remains unknown.

Footage of security cameras allegedly showed WT heavy equipment uprooting and loading trees on dumptrucks that headed north to Mandaue City starting March 26, but the release of the videos, requested by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for its inquiry, has been been withheld by the city government.

OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

Fed up with the delay, lawyer Gloria Estenzo Ramos yesterday wrote to Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama and DPWH Secretary Rogelio Salazar asking for an investigation and the filing of charges against the parties involved.

“As the tree massacre happened in the jurisdiction of the city, the city government is in fact duty-bound to prosecute the offenders and not leave the matter solely to the DENR,” wrote Ramos, co-founder of the Philippine Earth Justice Center Inc.

“In addition, the refusal of the mayor to release the CCTV footage, as requested by the DENR Region 7, can be construed as an obstruction of justice and giving unfavourable treatment to the possible offending party.”

Canlas of DPWH requested the DENR to lift its cease and desist order so the P289 million road rehabilitation project can be finished on schedule.

“As to the reported removal/balling out of trees on March 30, 2014, based on our project log book, no activity was observed during that day and even during the days prior to that due to the burst MCWD pipes,” said the DPWH 7 regional director in a reply dated April 8 to Community Environment and Natural Resources Officer (CENRO) Anastacio Cabalejo.

He attached the letter of WT Construction’s Engr. Quiroga, who recounted the events before and after the trees went missing.

“We did not cut down any trees from the subject area. Pruning and cutting of trees have always been entrusted to the Parks and Playgrounds of the City of Cebu. It was never our responsibility to prune or cut the trees,” Quiroga said.

“It is even impossible for us to cut down and remove trees supposedly from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. because we do not conduct any operations during that period,” he added.

He said some trees at the center island “fell” because of severe flooding in the area after a backhoe operator “unintentionally” struck a water line of the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) on the morning of March 28, a Friday.

“Immediately after the water line was struck, we requested the MCWD to shut down the water supply, but the latter refused because the various establishments and water consumers near the work site would be deprived of much-needed water,” Quiroga said.

He said the struck water line resulted to continuous water flow and flooding until noon of Sunday, March 30, an allegation later denied by MCWD.

“The flooding severely hampered our operations because we focused instead on de-watering from Friday to Sunday. The flooding also caused the soil to loosen and the trees to fall. It must be noted that the soil on the center island was quite shallow owing to the presence of a concrete base,” Quiroga wrote.

He said WT Construction is open to replacing the trees “even if we did not have a hand in their removal or cutting.”

The Metro Cebu Water District, meanwhile denied there was flooding in the site.

“According to news reports, several sources have already identified the culprit in the uprooting of the trees. They did not fail,” said Charmaine Rodriguez-Kara, MCWD manager of community relations and external affairs.

“If Mr. Quiroga is referring to the recent mainline leak across the Cokaliong Shipping office, it was even caused by their heavy equipment that hit our pipelines when they scraped the asphalt. But there was no flooding.”

“MCWD immediately repaired the pipeine they damaged and is yet to collect payment froj them.

They did not even come to us to pay for it,” she said.

Quiroga, in his letter, said the only removal of trees done was made at the request of the Parks and Playgrounds Commission which asked their equipment operators to remove some “small trees together with the garden soil”, which were loaded unto mini dumptrucks of the city government and deposited at the city’s nursery for later replanting and reuse.

But when sought for comment, Parks and Playgrounds Commission head Arlie Gesta corrected the report.

“We just asked them to load the fertile soil to be used again. But we didnt ask for the trees to be dumped and loaded. Yes it’s our responsibility to prune the trees but not to remove them,” Gesta told CDN.

Gesta said one of his men was able to talk with an equipment operator of WT Construction.

“One of our men who pruned the trees talked to a backhoe operator who said he accidently chopped down a pruned tree, meaning it’s already big,” he added.

The DENR 7 said they were finalizing a complaint to be filed against the contractor today.

“We are finalizing the judicial affidavits after a review by our chief legal division Atty. Fernando Alberca with some of our lawyers here at DENR 7 to substantiate our complaint against the officers of WT construction,” Llamedo said in a text message.