Gold Fields acquires gold shares in Lepanto as Baguio overloads

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March L. Fianza

In a simple get-together at Chong Loi’s floor, hosted by the community relations group of Gold Fields Ltd. in the Philippines, there was a new revelation that the group of nosy and noisy newsmen found out.

I learned from Louis Pawid that it has finally acquired the 60 per cent interest of Far South East (FSE) in Lepanto Mines and paid a non-refundable down-payment of $66 Million to Liberty Assets Express last September 20.

This, after paying the gold-copper producer $54 Million last year, $10 Million of which paid for option fees and $44 Million paid to Liberty, which in turn Lepanto used to pay the retirement fees of its restless miners who thought they would not get hold of any money for their families and after sweating and risking life and limb by extracting the gold in the bowels of the earth.

Last year, Gold Fields Ltd. signed an option agreement with Lepanto and Liberty. The agreement called for an 18-month option on FSE where the South African miner would conduct drilling activities to confirm existing data on FSE’s gold deposits.

At present, Gold Fields is continuing with its underground drilling activities and has started with surface geotechnical drilling. It has eight underground drill rigs turning.

By the time the option period ends in March next year, Gold Fields will have to settle a final payment of $220 Million which all in all will total up to $340 Million.

Aside from Louis, the media-Gold Fields get-together saw the presence of Marionne
Molintas, Nick Cawed, Ms. De Guia who kept on calling NBN thug Jonathan Llanes as Uncle or Lolo, newsmen who wind away the night with bottles of beer and cut-and-paste writer who drink wine with their heads and not with their big bellies.

“Many happy returns” to Gold Fields president Brett Mattison and to his staff of front liners that night.
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For quite a few instances in the past, media has been blamed by public officials and some from the business sector for the bad image of a community. The bad image, of course, is something that both the “blamer” and the writer do not want. It is just that the two are not in conformity when it comes to performing their duties on this plane.

Both are called to give their best in the performance of their jobs, with or without veiled interests – the politician to do what he thinks is right for the community and the media to inform the public about what the politician is doing. Thus, this should make things clearer that newsmen do not make stories, but they do write stories that politicians make.

This is explained in brief by singer-composer Sir Elton John when he said “don’t shoot me, I’m just a piano player.”

On several instances too I mentioned about Baguio and the DENR lands section stopping TSA thinking that doing so would stop the increase in uncollected basura, stop water shortage, improve traffic, etc. and of course, improve the living standards in the city.

That to me is what I see as my utmost consideration until now because common sense dictates that the more TSAs there are means more houses and more people occupancy in the city, which translates to a drop in water supply, more basura, overcrowding and more traffic jams on roads that do not seem to become wider anymore.

I look at stopping TSA applications as a holistic solution to the city’s problems that cannot be solved by any city council session, or by hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money, or by any set of elected public officials.

If money is what the government gets from the TSA that it awards, forget it. That does not answer the city’s problems. All the more that it adds to the problems.

And speaking in terms of basura, the question raised is – who are those who cannot segregate? The quickest and simplest answer I can think of is those who do not have backyards, including those who live in high-rise buildings, condominiums and condotels.

Imagine what people in four to six shanties on a 200-meter lot do with their nabubulok and di-nabubulok (biodegradable and non-biodegradable) garbage. Since they do not have a backyard or garden space where the nabubulok garbage can be thrown to become part of the soil, these end up in a bag with the di-nabubulok.

And by the way, there are no more lands to sell in Baguio – reason why many settlers entered informally to become “squatters.” For the votes that politicians get in exchange for their “kindness” in creating barangays out of the squatter areas, the problems worsened.
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What happened to the inquiry on whether Baguio is in a stage of “urban decay” that was done by former Senator Biazon in 2009?

In that inquiry, I recall Architect Joseph Alabanza saying that the city has gone beyond its capacity to serve its people efficiently. That was blamed on uncontrolled population growth. But after that public inquiry, the powers that be in city hall still do not get the signal.

And even while there are living patterns of urban areas in the country that are into the “decay” status, the city seems unaware of it, instead it appears like the city is treading on the footsteps of ugly urbanization – the construction of a concrete urban center. In short, “isipsemento.”

Senator Biazon looked at the formation of a new community cluster called BLISTT which stands for Baguio, La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan, Tuba, and Tublay as a possible solution, maybe thinking that the towns that surround the city could take on some of this “development.”

But as of this writing, leaders of the Benguet towns have expressed doubts if that would push through, having felt how Baguio treated its neighbors. Now, they are toying with the idea that a new community cluster minus the “B” might just be the answer. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com