DENR shuts down 3 Agusan mining firms; 1,200 jobless

TUBAY, Agusan del Norte – Three companies engaged in nickel and cobalt quarrying in three villages in this coastal town of Agusan del Norte have stopped their operations after the Court of Appeals (CA) affirmed the cease-and-desist order which outgoing Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Angelo Reyes issued against them last November.

The CA’s sixth division handed down its decision last July 4, but the Surigao City-based regional office of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau only implemented it last Friday afternoon.

Officials of the three Manila-based companies – S. R. Metals Inc., San R Construction Corp. and Galeo Equipment Corp. –  claimed that their shutdown would render some 1,200 mostly local folk jobless.

Engineer Abelardo Magpali, S.R. Metals resident manager, said the three firms, for instance, employed 75 security guards from local security agency Chevron, owned by retired former Caraga police director Chief Superintendent Rene Jamolod Elumbaring.

Peter Dan Punongbayan, S. R. Metals human resources and administrative manager, said his firm employed 500 local workers, while San R Construction and Galeo Equipment had 281 and 257, respectively.

“We have to reduce manpower by 70 to 80 percent so that what will remain is just a skeletal workforce for maintenance, office and environmental work while we await the decision of our higher-ups”, Magpali said.

On March 9 last year, the Provincial Mining Regulatory Board granted two-year, small-scale permits to the three companies to mine cobalt and nickel deposits in three properties totaling 20 hectares in three villages here.

Agusan del Norte Gov. Erlpe John Amante approved the permits after the Environmental Management Bureau’s regional office granted the firms’ environmental compliance certificates.

But local church authorities protested the quarry operations, claiming that they violated environmental laws and might cause disasters, as a multisectoral fact-finding team later corroborated.

This led Reyes to issue the cease-and-desist order last Nov. 24, but officials of the three companies alleged they were deprived of due process and elevated the issue to the appellate court.