GMA orders immediate resolution of Mt. Diwalwal mining conflict

DAVAO CITY - President Arroyo ordered the immediate resolution of the decades-old conflict at the gold-rush site in Mt. Diwalwal in Monkayo, Compostela Valley, lest government will take over mining operations in the area.

The conflict has claimed thousands of lives since mining operations started in the early 1980s, with most of the killings going unreported.

The President has tasked Environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte with finding a solution to the nagging problem existing between the thousands of small-scale miners and the few high-financed operators at the site.

"I want an immediate solution to it if not government will have to take over," Mrs. Arroyo told reporters over dinner Monday night here at the Marco Polo Hotel where she was billeted.

In a related development, a group of lawmakers from Mindanao condemned Secretary Alvarez for using what they described as public relations stunts and an outright smear campaign against those opposing his confirmation at the Commission on Appointments (CA).

In a statement, 24 Mindanao congressmen reiterated their opposition to Alvarez’s confirmation because of what they claim was the unabated pollution of the water systems in the Caraga region from illegal gold mining at Mt. Diwalwal.

A majority of the miners, belonging to the Monkayo Integrated Small Scale Miners Association (MISSMA), have been locked in a heated legal dispute with the Southeast Mining Corp. (SEM) over land claims now pending in the Supreme Court.

MISSMA sought rights to at least 729 hectares within the 4,999 hectares that SEM is claiming. However SEM refused to budge on MISSMA’s claims as the contested site was reported to be the most productive portion in the entire gold-rush area.

Duterte, who was assigned on the job in his capacity as head of the Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC), immediately buckled down to work Tuesday and met with the stakeholders in the mining operations in Mt. Diwalwal.

The meeting was also attended by Alvarez who later motored to Cotabato City where the President was in the last leg of her latest provincial sortie.

The mayor met with representatives from MISSMA, SEM as well as with Compostela Valley Rep. Manuel Zamora and local officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Duterte warned that he would be forced to recommend the total closure of the mining site should the four major stakeholders in the area themselves still fail to come up with a win-win solution to the problem.

"If they fail to stop the bickering and the killings, then government should take over and close the mining site," the mayor said.

The miners themselves have reportedly been prodded by the mayor to enter into at least a joint venture agreement that would benefit all parties concerned.

Government has over the years tried to implement several schemes to bring the dispute to an end, one of which was the 1999 declaration of the contested 729 hectares as a people’s mining site. This however also proved futile as the rift became more tense with the problem on delineation of tunnels.

Mrs. Arroyo expressed her desire that Duterte and Alvarez have to come up with a solution within this week or the mining site will be closed.

Surigao del Sur Rep. Prospero Pichay said a series of paid ads by illegal gold miners has bolstered his belief that Alvarez was indeed unfit to be DENR secretary.

"With his clumsy PR efforts, Mr. Alvarez has erased my last doubt that he is in cahoots with the illegal miners who are extracting a huge amount of gold everyday without the proper permits or without any benefit at all going to the government," said Pichay.

Pichay added he was disturbed by a report in the Inquirer last Sunday that said Alvarez’s wife Cecille Guidote had threatened "to do worse than a Linda Montayre" if her husband was removed as DENR secretary. Montayre was a former ally of the administration who has since linked up with the opposition.

"I hope this is not true, for if it is, then it gives credence to the rumors that there is a conjugal dictatorship holding sway at the DENR," he said.

Other congressmen who sided with Pichay against Alvarez include Compostela Valley’s Zamora, Agusan del Norte Rep. Leovegildo Banaag, Zamboanga City Rep. Celso Lobregat, and Agusan del Sur Rep. Rodolfo Plaza.

Last Saturday an alleged group of small gold miners in Mt. Diwalwal came out with full-page ads in several newspapers, addressed to Mrs. Arroyo and reiterating their support for the confirmation of Alvarez.

The group filed an ethics case versus Pichay for what they called his undue interference in the Mt. Diwalwal pollution controversy. Since the congressman was not from the area, he had no right to intervene, the group said.

"In fairness to Representative Pichay, it was not him but I who had raised the issue of the devastating pollution caused by the illegal mining in Mt. Diwalwal during the CA confirmation hearings for Secretary Alvarez," said Representative Zamora.

Because of his dismay over what he perceived as misleading answers given by Alvarez to the CA over Mt. Diwalwal, Zamora turned in his resignation from the Lakas party to Alvarez, who is secretary general of Lakas.