In a statement, Melchor Plaza, chairman of the Balite Integrated Small-Scale Mining Cooperative (BISSMICO), said Alvarez "could have acted in excess of his jurisdiction in declaring a state of emergency and proclaiming Mt. Diwalwal a mineral reservation."
He said Alvarez has no mandate to proclaim national emergencies or to parcel off mineral land from an existing forest reservation.
Plaza alleged that Alvarez effected the Diwalwal takeover "in the guise of addressing the pollution problem and the needs of his imagined 30,000 destitute small miners in the area."
He added that Alvarez subsequently "lost no time in delivering service contracts to 18 dummy cooperatives of illegal corporate miners all in a record time of 10 days."
Plaza said BISSMICO, a cooperative of "real" small-scale miners which has a valid contract with the "legal" claimant, the South East Mindanao Gold Mining Corp. (SEM), was among 30,000 miners left out in favor of "illegal" miners.
Plaza recalled that when Alvarez was still a senator, he (Alvarez) reportedly called the illegal mining operators at Mt. Diwalwal members of a syndicate victimizing the government of billions of pesos in lost revenues.
"Why is the secretary favoring them now?" he asked.
Plaza said that as specified in Republic Act 7942 and the Constitution, only the President, upon the recommendation of the director, through the DENR secretary, may declare an area as a mineral reservation.
In the proclamation of mineral reservations, he added that all valid and existing mining rights should be respected.
Plaza said that upon instructions of then Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Victor Ramos, he and several other small-scale miners had an agreement with SEM to mine certain portions of its mineral production sharing agreement (MPSA).