Quirino Province reasserts claim on gold-rich barangay

BY LUIS JOSE

CABARROGUIS, Quirino – The provincial government of Quirino is now reasserting its territorial claim for a border barangay that now hosts the multi-billion-peso Didipio Gold-Copper joint project of the national government and its Australian partner Oceana Gold.

This move has however driven a deeper wedge in its relations with mother province Nueva Vizcaya with which it has an almost five decade-old boundary dispute.

Quirino Gov. Dakila Cua said on Oct. 28 they are now taking serious steps to back up their government’s territorial claim over the disputed Barangay Didipio in Kasibu town.

Cua said there are legal and accepted ways to prove boundary claims, like the geographic positioning system, so that the provincial government can exercise its political jurisdiction and claim over the barangay, and likewise for Nueva Vizcaya to give up its jurisdiction over the village.

Didipio is emerging as the region’s prime mining site for the two metals as the village is now being considered as prime gold rush site of Region 1.

The barangay is busy with the large scale mining operation sanction by the national government to prop up the once-moribund mining industry in the country.

The project, expected to generate millions of pesos in local taxes for the host local government unit, was contracted to Oceana Gold Philippines for 15 years.

“We are ready to produce evidence to show that Didipio is within Quirino. We can avail of the modern GPS (global positioning system) satellite survey which shows it is indeed within the boundaries of our province,” Cua said.

For their part, Nueva Vizcaya officials took exception to the move of Quirino officials to reassert their claims over the territory being disputed by the two provinces ever since Quirino’s separation from Nueva Vizcaya in the late 1960s.

“Quirino cannot just unilaterally declare that a certain area subject to boundary dispute is part of its territory. If they want to base the matter on maps, we have also maps that show (Didipio) is in Kasibu,” said Nueva Vizcaya Vice Gov. Jose Gambito.

Dominated by tribal communities, Didipio, around an hour’s drive from this capital town, and about two hours from Nueva Vizcaya’s capital Bayombong town, gained prominence for being the region’s first large-scale mining site, which the national government could generate more than P30 billion in its 15 years of operation, aside from thousands of jobs it would create for the local communities.

The rekindled interest of Quirino and Nueva Vizcaya officials involving the once-obscure and extremely far-flung mountainous village raised fears of a possible return of heated relations between the two provinces.

Cua said old maps show Didipio falls within territory of Quirino and is not part of Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya. The provincial government, he said, would seek the assistance of the national government to mediate and provide technical assistance to have the matter resolved.