NORZAGARAY TREASURE HUNT - Mayor resents 'intrusion' by Calimlim

(Conclusion)

BARANGAY BIGTE, Norzagaray, Bulacan - This town's mayor, Dr. Feliciano Legaspi, is not happy either. He told The STAR in an interview at his office that he was last to know about the treasure hunt.

"I was on my way home when I heard on the radio last night about it," he said. "I resent this intrusion into my hometown."

He faulted Lt. Gen. Jose Calimlim for not having the courtesy to seek the municipal council's approval for the treasure hunt. Last year, he said three persons died in an accident while looking for buried treasure in an area not far from the property of businessman Dante Legaspi.

"I wanted to place that area under an ecotourism program but for some reason, the project didn't push through," he said. "I've been here for a long time and I know how beautiful that place was in the old days until quarrying and the cement plants came in."

Old-timers in Barangay Bigte say the hill, which rises to more than 100 feet in some places, was used by Japanese forces in World War II to prepare for a last-ditch defense against the returning American Army.

In the hill, made of solid marble, the Japanese dug up a network of bunkers that led to a big cavernous hall which they used as a field hospital. They carved out several entrances, most of which were man-sized. One passageway however, located atop the hill, could accommodate a small truck.

"My grandparents used to tell us the Japanese were only dislodged from the hill when the Americans poured flaming gasoline down a hole on top of the hill," said barangay councilor Manny Hermogenes, 41.

He recalled that in their younger days, he and his friends would take trips to the hill and play in its labyrinth of tunnels. "We would gather ammunition and scrap metal left behind by the Japanese and sell them in the town," he told The STAR. "It was very beautiful inside the hill. There was even a small pool where you could take a cool dip in clean water."

All of that is gone now after years of quarrying, the main source of livelihood of many people in the area, he said. In the late 70s, the Continental Cement firm built a big plant on a shoulder of the hill. The cement plant has eaten up a big chunk of the hill.

Hermogenes himself runs a small marble crushing operation, selling crushed marble at P130 a ton to buyers from the poblacion just a few kilometers away.

Hermogenes said Calimlim's men worked 24 hours a day, digging two 20-foot deep gullies down the foot of the hill. The men even rented a jackhammer from a resident, paying him P16,000 a month for its use.

Residents in the neighborhood interviewed by The STAR said heavily armed soldiers cordoned off the property early this month.

The soldiers fenced off the property with wooden stakes on which hang long and wide bands of yellow plastic strips with the word "Caution." The fences look like police barricades, except that they don't seem to belong out there at the foot of the hill of the remote barangay.

The entrance to the treasure hunt site even bears a sign which reads "No Trespassing, Government Project." But the soldiers were nowhere to be seen when The STAR went to the area the other day, and saw only a handful of men in civilian clothes who told this reporter to keep out of the property.

"Our commanding officer is not around," said a man with crewcut hair who was fixing a television antenna by the fenced-off site. "Stay out of the fence."