Woman busted for selling seedlings

₱300,000 worth of endangered agarwood seedlings illegally sold by a woman in Barangay Sangat, San Fernando town, Cebu, were seized during a joint entrapment operation carried out by the National Bureau of Investigation-Cebu City District Office (NBI-CEBDO) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) earlier on February 20.

- 

The arrested suspect was identified as Jocelyn Dacanay Polleros, 59, a native of Davao Oriental currently residing in Barangay Sangat.

Confiscated from her were at least 48 crates containing approximately 1,000 seedlings planted in a backyard nursery in her residence.

Polleros admitted that she has been selling agarwood seedlings since 2019 although she knew this requires a permit from the DENR.

She explained that she was unable to immediately obtain one after failing to germinate the seedlings in the previous years, adding that these only successfully grew just this year.

“Dugay-dugay pero bag-o lang na ni-success kay lisod man gud siya i-germinate kay usahay ang madawat nako nga bunga kay linghod ba... Karon lang tuiga ni-success,” she told the reporters.

Since the seedlings have already sprouted this time, she said she was already planning to get a permit later next month, citing that it took her a while because she has been busy taking care of the nursery on her own.

“Gaplano ko kay ni-success siyag turok unya mokuha ko og permit (pero) dili ko ka lakaw og basta-basta kay ako ra usa ba... Ako plano mga March unta to kay nag-process pa man pod ko,” said Polleros.