DEPARTMENT of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Ramon Paje yesterday appealed to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Philippine National Police (PNP) to expedite the investigation on the killing of a lady forester the other day in Cagayan.

Paje made the appeal as he condemned the killing of Melania Dirain, forestry specialist assigned at the Community Environment and Natural Resources (CENRO) in Sanchez Mira, Cagayan, who was gunned down by an unidentified man inside her office last Tuesday night.

The DENR chief said the killing could be related to the anti-illegal logging campaign in the region.

“The investigation is still on-going, but we could not somehow blame her murder to our step-up campaign against illegal logging because of the official circumstances that for Dirain was into at the time of her death,” Paje said.   

Paje received reports that Dirain, 47, was talking to a male office messenger when the gunman wearing black pants, black jacket and a scarf on his head, suddenly arrived and shot her.

The victim died on the spot while the suspect immediately fled after the incident.

Forester Dirain joined the DENR in 1989 as a forest guard.  In January 2010, she was promoted to the position of Forestry Specialist.  

At the time of her death, Dirain was the team leader of the CENR Office in the apprehension of undocumented lumber, flitches, and other forest products in the area.

Field reports indicated that the most recent anti-illegal logging operations made by her team was last Jan. 27 when they apprehended in Alcala town, also in Cagayan province, some 118 pieces of undocumented lumber of premium hardwood, with estimated volume of 2,167 board feet, aboard a six-by-six truck owned by the Philippine National Police Regional Mobile Group with plate number SHD 961.

The confiscated forest products, including the conveyance, are presently impounded at the DENR’s field office in Alcala, Cagayan.   Cory Martinez