Irresponsible Mining Activities in Zambales Under Probe

Rep. Cheryl P. Deloso-Montalla is seeking a congressional inquiry into the alleged “hapless and irresponsible” mining activities in her province of Zambales.

Hon. Cheryl P. Deloso-Montalla”The ill-effects of nickel ore mining have been too hard to ignore as threats to the environment, livelihood and inhabitants of the host communities in the municipalities of Masinloc, Candelaria and Santa Cruz,” the author of House Resolution 2495 stressed.

Through HR 2495, the author is urging the committees on Ecology and Natural Resources to “immediately conduct an investigation, in aid of legislation, on the environmental tragedy which occurred in the municipalities of Masinloc, Candelaria and Santa Cruz in the province of Zambales as a result of the hapless and irresponsible mining activities in the area.”

It is acknowledged that Zambales, particularly Masinloc, Candelaria and Santa Cruz, are endowed with high grade mineral resources, which is why mining has become the major economic driver of the said municipalities.

In a chronology of events through HR 2495, Rep. Deloso-Montalla cited that large scale mining companies which were granted permits to operate in the areas were found, in July 2014, to have been “practicing unsystematic strip mining methods that led to inefficient recovery of minerals and cause adverse environmental impact like siltation in bodies of water and generation of dust.”

Subsequently, she recalled, that a multidisciplinary team under the auspices of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) conducted assessment in the mining sites and recommended the “establishment of silt ponds, silt traps, peripheral drainage canals and the institution of measures to ensure slope stabilization and reforestation.”

“Far from abating the sordid and irreversible legacy of mining destruction, social displacement and other correlative shoddy consequences brought about by profligate mining operations, mining companies operating in the area are as fervidly posed to scrounge, fleece or even sack up to the hilt — at the municipalities’ rich mineral resources,” the lady lawmaker lamented.

She revealed that in Santa Cruz alone, the impact of hapless mining activities prior to the onslaught of Super Typhoon Lando early this year was estimated to be worth some half a billion pesos in losses in terms of food, rice, mango and fish production.

“Despite an earlier MGB suspension of operations order, mining companies still continue to surreptitiously haul, transport and export their stockpile of laterite ore, thereby rendering said government order toothless and ineffective,” she revealed.

Even as Typhoon Lando, October of 2015, brought its own havoc to the country in general, the lady lawmaker said, the natural whip of nature revealed the sad extend of devastation resulting from the clandestine mining activities.

“Along with torrential rains, thick reddish-brown mud flow deluged from the mountains, where large scale mining companies operate, into the lowlands and devoured everything along its path, from houses to barangay halls, farms animals and farm produce of farmers and fisher folks, and covered farmlands and heavily silted river systems and waterways which would eventually destroy the ecosystems,” she pointed out.

She added that the said mud flow prevented the fast absorption of flood water, which in some barangays in Santa Cruz reached 12 feet deep, by the soil and resulted in the slow recession of flood water that further aggravated the damage brought about by the weather disturbance.

“It took typhoon Lando to reveal a never-seen-before grim and grotesque picture of the communities surrounding the mining sites in Masinloc, Candelaria and Santa Cruz,” she added.

“Lando” alone left damage to the millions of pesos, not to mention the loss of an innocent life and more than 20,000 families or 100,000 individuals suffering from the havoc of the catastrophe, she said, adding that two weeks after the typhoon, the people were still reeling from the ramifications of the mudflow.

“This injustice must not be brushed off and condoned as it is enshrined in Section 16, Article II of the 1987 constitution that the State shall protect and enhance the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm of nature,” the lady author concluded.

HR 2495 is now pending with the Committee on Rules for its appropriate consideration and action.

Source: icto.congress.gov.ph