Gov’t closes hundreds of Itogon small scale mines

BAGUIO CITY – The National Task Force on Mining Challenge (NTF-MC) continues to implement the Cease and Desist Order (CDO) of all small-scale mining activities in the region that was issued by Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu on Sept. 17.

Engineer Ralph Pablo, regional director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Cordillera (DENR-CAR), in a media briefing on Tuesday, said as of Oct. 8, there were 539 adits (entrance to an underground mine) closed, 335 bull-mills cordoned, 64 carbon-in pulp/carbon in leech (CIP/ CIL) cordoned, 170 leach pad padlocked, 33 kilograms of cyanide seized, four persons apprehended, and 64,214 sacks of mineral ore seized.

“This operation will continue and we are asking the residents to comply with the order to prevent being arrested,” Pablo said.

Assistant Secretary for Luzon Operations, Joselin Marcus Fragada, said in the same press briefing the DENR will pursue the operation together with the Armed Forces of the Philipines (AFP), Philippine National Police, and Benguet Electric Cooperative (Beneco).

Fragada said the operation has three phases: first is the closure of the illegal small-scale mines; second is the relocation of the residents staying in geohazard zone, and third is the provision of livelihood to the residents.

The livelihood phase will be through a convergence of various government agencies.

“The operation is focused on the precept that the activity is illegal and they are doing their activities on hazardous grounds and we want to prevent a repeat of the landslide that killed many people,” Fragada said.

Fragada, however, said sustaining the closure will need the vigilance and cooperation of the local government unit, as well as the barangays, to assure that the small-scale mining activities will not resume and that there will be no more casualties.

Electricity supply cut
He said Beneco, the electric distributor for Baguio and Benguet, plays a major role in the success of the operation.

“Without electricity, they cannot resume mining. Without power, the bull mill processing the gold cannot operate," Fragada added.

Melchor Licoben, Beneco's manager for technical network services, said the utility firm has disconnected the "flying" electric connection that will prevent the operation of the illegal mines and its accessory activities.

He defined flying connection as those power lines connected to an infrastructure, and which were not declared when the electric connection with Beneco was applied.

Licoben said the operation in Itogon is also helping in the campaign to prevent accidents, which may come about due to such connections, which he described as "unsafe."

“Yung main premise namin dyan is yung safety naman kasi pag flying yan, hindi nasunod yung tamang pag konekta. So anything can happen baka may ma aksidente (Our premise in disconnecting is safety, since these flying connections are not compliant with the standards),” Licoben said.

“Hindi siya ginawa properly, baka ginawa lang ng karpintero hindi ng rightful electrician (It was not done properly, it might have been just done by a carpenter and not by a licensed electrician),” he added.

He said there have been electrocution incidents because of those so-called flying connections.

Stopping small-scale mining

Fragada said one challenge in stopping small-scale mining operations is that not all adits are in open areas.

 “There are adits inside the shanties, inside the bunkhouses,” he said.

But the real challenge, he said, is with the people.

“There is a challenge convincing the people to abandon the livelihood, which had survived them for years and they have been doing this since they were little,” Fragada said.

Fragada gave credit to the talks and information campaigns conducted by the local government unit, as well as the agencies after the landslide.

"There were no reports of actual resistance from the residents,” he noted.

He said that the advisory to the small-scale miners was sent starting Sept. 24.

From Oct. 1 to 5, they did an ocular inspection to see if the residents have complied. It was at this time when they also saw that there are adits hidden inside shanties and concealed using different means.

On October 5, they sat down with the law enforcers to plan the operation and in the early morning on Oct. 7, they started the implementation of the closure operation.

Based on an initial inventory, there are over a thousand adits in Itogon area alone that needs to be closed, aside from the small-scale mining sites in the other towns in Benguet and in other provinces in Cordillera.

Last Sept. 17, DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu, during his visit in La Trinidad Benguet, ordered a halt to all small-scale mining activities in the entire Cordillera and canceled all 10 small-scale mining contracts issued by the DENR before the landslide that took scores of lives, mostly of small-scale miners and laborers. -- PNA