Source: GMA News Online
October 11, 2008
MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives will look into the apparent lapses of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in enforcing mining laws that allowed a landslide in Maco town that killed at least 30 people last month.
An article on the House of Representatives website
(www.congress.gov.ph) said Bayan Muna Reps. Satur Ocampo and Teodoro Casiño filed House Resolution 797 seeking the probe.
Ocampo and Casiño lamented that despite the tragedy and clear signs that Maco is a geohazard and landslide-prone area, the DENR did not halt large and small-scale mining operations there.
House Resolution 797 sought an inquiry into the two landslides that hit Barangay Masara, Maco, Compostela Valley last Sept. 7 and 8, which claimed 30 lives and forced the evacuation of more than 5,000 residents.
They cited a report of the environment group Panalipdan-Southern Mindanao Region (SMR) that the operations of APEX Mining Company and Crew Gold Corporation have contributed to the area's high-risk geohazard nature.
APEX started its mining operations in the village in the 1980s while international gold mining company Crew Gold Corporation, which has headquarters in Weybridge, United Kingdom, acquired the Masar gold mine in 2005 according to Panalipdan-SMR.
Crew Minerals' drillings have now gone as deep as 32,000 meters while the underground development of the APEX property continues with portals and ramp systems.
Crew Minerals has a target production of 85,000 to 180,000 ounces of gold and 500,000 to 600,000 ounces of silver at the end of 2008, according to Panalipdan-SMR.
The group said the DENR's relentless issuances of mining permits to foreign mining companies shows the government's political incapacity to impose environmental safeguards and assert its regulatory function in the high-risk mining industry that endangers the very lives of the local people in geohazard areas, mining tenements and the environment.
According to Panalipdan-SMR, DENR technical experts declared Masara a high-risk zone and recommended that it be evacuated as early as 2006.
Likewise, it said the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) already assessed the area, declared it a high-risk zone and recommended the evacuation of residents from that area.
In 2007, SMR said 10 people died in a rain-triggered landslide, prompting the MGB to reiterate its urgent recommendation that the area be immediately vacated.
"Compostela Valley is also an environmentally-critical province and the nonchalance of the DENR on the continued presence of unregulated small scale mining operations and the reported large scale mining activities in the area will further deplete whatever finite resources are left and permanently damage the biodiversity and livelihood of the local people," the lawmakers said in their resolution. - GMANews.TV
