MGB issues CDO to Negros small-scale miners

Bacolod City, Philippines  – The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) has issued a cease-and-desist order (CDO) to more than 100 families engaged in unregulated small-scale gold mining activities in southern Negros Occidental. 

MGB-Western Visayas director Leo Van Juguan said they issued the CDO to small-scale miners in Hinobaan town and Sipalay City after a geo-environmental assessment showed the geologic hazards and environmental impact of their mining activities in the area. 

Eriberto Madalag, officer-in-charge of the Regulatory Services Division of the Provincial Environment and Management Office (PEMO), said the small-scale miners can process 10 to 20 grams of gold in a single operation, and each gram can be sold at P1,700. 

Juguan has apprehensions that accidents could happen if these miners go underground and ignore safety rules.

“I have to issue a warning in the form of a cease-and-desist order,” he said.

“We will ensure it will not become another Compostela Valley,” he added, referring to the landslides that have killed scores of people in the gold-rush site on Mount Diwata.

But Juguan admitted some problems in implementing the order. “They (miners) refused to receive the CDO,” he said, adding though that the MGB is trying to come up with a “win-win” solution.

“Our hands are not really that tied. We are trying to come up with an appropriate (solution),” he said in an interview here Wednesday. 

For its part, the PEMO is concerned that these miners use toxic chemicals for gold extraction and dump the hazardous waste into a creek that flows toward Bacuyangan River in Hinobaan town.