Illegal mining still rampant in landslide-prone Nueva Vizcaya areas

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines – Illegal small-scale mining goes on unabated in three landslide-prone villages in the province with certain local officials reportedly the ones even abetting it.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) said some 6,000 illegal small-scale miners have been extracting gold ore and other minerals such as copper and molybdenum in Barangays Didipio and Alimit in Kasibu town and Barangay Runruno in Quezon town.

Didipio is the base of the national government-backed gold-copper project of Australian firm OceanaGold Philippines Inc.

The project is the country’s first potential commercial mining venture under the 1995 Mining Act.   

Runruno hosts the multibillion-peso gold-molybdenum project being undertaken by the national government through FCF Minerals, a local subsidiary of London-based Metals Exploration.

Runruno has also been identified as prone to landslides and flash floods but illegal miners, among them from the nearby provinces of Ifugao and Benguet, continue to proliferate in the area, transforming the once-peaceful village into a gold-rush site.   

The illegal miners, some of them reportedly maintaining unlicensed firearms, have been utilizing heavy equipment and banned explosives to construct tunnels as well as deadly chemicals to extract gold from the ore.

“Instead of opposing these (national government-sanctioned) projects, anti-mining groups should help curb the rampant illegal extraction of minerals in these areas, which is the real cause of floods and landslides,” said MGB engineer Geoffrey Prado. 

Unlike small-scale mining, the MGB said government-sanctioned large-scale mining has safety nets to ensure that it would not cause flooding and landslides. 

Although there was no official confirmation, reports of deaths due to cave-ins and premature explosions as well as the use of deadly chemicals from small-scale mining operations have been taking place in the these villages.   

Last year, the provincial police reported that at least 10 miners were buried alive in a 150-foot tunnel in Didipio’s adjacent Alimit village. 

The MGB blamed small-scale miners for contaminating rivers in Runruno and Didipio with mercury and cyanide.

This was affirmed by the Nueva Vizcaya State University, which conducted a study on the rivers’ conditions amid reports of their being already biologically dead. 

“The rising level of mercury content in the rivers is caused by the traditional small-scale mining using (these) toxic chemicals,” the MGB said.

The provincial government has called for the dismantling of small-scale mining operations in the landslide-prone areas but to no avail.

Reports said certain businessmen and local officials were even the ones financing or abetting small-scale mining there.

“We have to stop them now or else we will suffer the same fate as in Mt. Diwalwal,” said Gov. Luisa Cuaresma, referring to the gold-rush area in Compostela Valley where miners have died due to unsafe mining practices.