Baguio City Council Requests to Speed up Issuance of Permits for Cutting of Dead Trees

On the post of the Public Information Office-City of Baguio Facebook page today, November 9, 2020, the Baguio City Council has requested to speed up the issuance of permits for the cutting of the following:

• Dead trees
• Trees that pose a serious threat to the main lines of BENECO

Furthermore, during last Monday’s Regular Session, the City Council requested the aforementioned to the following offices:

• Department of Environment and Natural Resources – Cordillera Administrative Region (DENR-CAR)
• City Environment and Parks Management Office (CEPMO)

According to the post of the PIO-Baguio, the City Council has requested to speed up issuance of permits for the cutting of dead trees and trees that pose a serious threat to life for the following reason:

• To prevent unnecessary power outages during a heavy downpour and natural calamities.
• The council stipulated there will be a likely possibility that the foundation of the dead trees will be saturated with water that will eventually cause the same to fall on the power lines anytime.
• Most of the unscheduled power interruptions that happen within BENECO’s franchise area are caused by fallen dead trees or trees that pose a serious threat to the power lines that had not to be cut because of the tedious process involved prior to the issuance of the required tree cutting permit from either the involved local government or the concerned government agency.
• The occurrence of unscheduled power interruptions caused by fallen dead trees or trees that fall on BENECO power lines should have been avoided if the same had been immediately removed or cut as per the recommendation of concerned offices

In addition, according to the City Council, electricity is essential to the people and unscheduled power interruptions due to falling trees should be avoided for it not to interrupt the smooth flow of the city’s economy.

Also, under the prevailing guidelines for the issuance of tree cutting permits the following are stated on the PIO-Baguio post:

• The Local Chief Executive is empowered to issue tree cutting permits for dead trees or trees that pose a serious threat to life and limb upon the recommendation of the CEPMO.
• The DENR-CAR is in charge of issuing tree cutting permits for live trees and those that are naturally grown upon the recommendation of the agency’s technical personnel.