Entry of illegal miners to Tampakan site feared

DAVAO DEL SUR – A local official of Hagonoy town here has expressed alarm over the entry of illegal small-scale miners to the large and still untapped Tampakan mining site which straddles the boundaries of this province and South Cotabato.

Municipal councilor Dante Aznar said the threat of crude and unregulated illegal small-scale mining destroying their mountains is becoming real with the continuing delay in the operation of the proposed Tampakan mine.

“If Sagittarius Mines is not given a permit to operate, unregulated small-scale miners will penetrate the area in the mountains,” Aznar said.

Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI) is the government contractor for the proposed $5.9-billion Tampakan copper-gold mine.

The project has been stalled by South Cotabato’s environmental code banning open-pit mining in the province.

Aznar said they are concerned about the impact of crude mining operations on the Mal and Padada river system, the main source of irrigation for farmers in this province.

“We will have bigger problems with illegal small-scale miners; they use tools that are destructive to the environment and destroy our river,” he said.

Meanwhile, thousands of small-scale miners at the gold-rush site in Pantukan, Compostela Valley continue to defy the “no-habitation” policy that was supposed to be strictly imposed there following the series of landslides in the area, including the one last January that killed more than 30 people.

Mines and Geosciences Bureau-Region 11 chief Edilberto Arreza told The STAR that the continued defiance of the miners to leave the landslide-prone area has caused so much headache to authorities implementing the policy.

“They have become so hard-headed and they are back again in the mountains of Pantukan,” Arreza said.