BEHIND THE SCENES

Alfred P. Dizon
Heroes of the Itogon, Benguet mine disaster

There is bickering now among the “heroes” who saved the nine miners and retrieved the six casualties who were trapped in a tunnel in Itogon, Benguet at the height of Typhoon Nina and the media is partly to blame for this owing to sloppy reportage.

Some small scale miners I talked to said the media in their news reports portrayed the 911 team and the Navy Seals as those responsible for the rescue when in fact, if not for them, rescuing the trapped miners would have taken longer or more could have died.

This is understandable considering that it was the miners who knew the way inside the maze. It was reportedly them who literally went against the current in the tunnel with the water reaching up to their chins they could hardly breathe. The navy apparatus of course also played a crucial factor in the operations as they were able to chart their way underwater. I guess, everybody should be commended for a job well done in saving the miners and this bickering should stop.
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Now, upon orders of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the management of Benguet Corp. is being investigated for the alleged diversion of the natural flow of the Antamok River which caused the death of the six miners.

A BC official, requesting anonymity told me if ever there is anybody to blame for the tragedy, it is the small scale miners themselves for “illegally” going inside the tunnel at the height of a storm

But the miners said the company constructed two diversion tunnels which caused the huge landslides at two sitios of Barangay Luacan and the flooding of the underground work sites that claimed the lives of the six miners.

Itogon officials asked why the two diversion tunnels, which were constructed in the early 1900s to pave the way for the large-scale mining operations of BC, were not closed when the company stopped its operations in the 1990s.

Residents said the tunnels diverted the flow of the Antamok River to Barangay Luacan to prevent the river water from flowing directly to the company’s open-pit mine sites. They said construction of the two diversion tunnels did not serve its purpose because the tunnels were clogged.

They said pressure of the dammed water became so strong that it triggered the huge landslides which displaced at least 120 families at Sitios Tugue and Coral in Barangay Luacan. When the clogged tunnels burst, they added, water flooded the mine tunnel and trapped the 16 pocket miners.

The huge landslides covered a 50-hectare land in the barangay, destroying at least 90 houses. Thirty-seven of the houses were buried under tons of earth and boulders, displacing some 1,000 individuals. Inside the tunnel, the last missing miner was rescued by his fellow pocket miners at Level 700.
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Now, Environment officials are saying the purpose of the investigation was to identify and penalize parties responsible for the tragic incident.

Since June, BC had reportedly been negotiating with a group of pocket miners on a sharing scheme for the conduct of small-scale mining activities at the abandoned mine site.

But the parties have not reached a deal thus, the trapped miners were considered to have illegally entered the mine site by removing the steel gates placed in the portals of the mine area. The residents said the pocket miners demanded a 90-10 sharing scheme with the company, but BC management wanted an 80-20 sharing deal.
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Following this, Gov. Nestor Fongwan asked Malacanang to conduct an impartial probe of the Antamok tragedy. Who is to blame? Is it the small-scale miner, Benguet Corp., the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, or the local government units?

According to pundits, not anyone of these groups can come out with the truth. They will just blame each other with the usual half-truths and white lies. They said the Mining Geosciences Board-Cordillera cannot investigate itself. BC will wash its hands and blame on the miners. The death of the six miners will be treated as another statistics in the mining industry.

The move of Fongwan for Malacanang to step in is the proper approach and the probe should be conducted in a transparent way. It must be held at a venue open to the general public and should take the form of a public hearing submitted to the President and Congress in aid of much-needed legislation to our antiquated small-scale mining law.

P.T. Quinto, a private mining geologist is questioning whether the present setup is conducive to good governance and to effective exercise of oversight function. Should small-scale mining be put directly under the Office of the President, say, under PMDC; or should it be under a new division in the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources?