ZAMBOANGA DEL SUR (Mindanao Examiner / June 15, 2013) – A southern Philippine community has urged the government to hasten the issuance of the Environment Compliance Certificate to TVI Resource Development Philippines Inc. or TVIRD, the local affiliate of Canada-based TVI Pacific, Inc. so it can start mining activities in Zamboanga del Sur province.
The entire town of Bayog – consisting of 28 villages and leaders of indigenous Subanen residents – have asked the Department of Environment and Natural Resources or DENR to speed-up the issuance of the ECC so that TVIRD can begin its mining project in the area and provide jobs and assistance to the municipality, as well as for potential economic gains through royalties, and livelihood opportunities for the Subanen hosts.
With the recent addition of the villages of Lamare and Liba, the community signed resolutions and emphasized the immediate need for the environmental clean-up of the area once overwhelmed with illegal small-scale mining operations.
Village leaders Severo Opay, of Kahayagan; and Felisa Antonio, of Pulangbato, said they also wanted progress in their villages and have sought and favored TVIRD’s mining operations in the area.
Urgent need for environmental rehabilitation
”We have already sent our request (through the resolution) to the concerned agencies. What has taken them so long?” Antonio asked.
In its resolution, representatives of Kahayagan, the second largest village in Bayog town, said illegal miners had left behind toxic wastes, such as mercury and cyanide, and that neighboring communities urgently need rehabilitation and remediation works soonest to save the area from the severe, if not irreversible environment destruction.”
“The Department of Environment and Natural Resources should take action and address the issues because Balabag (Hill) should be decontaminated immediately,” Opay said in an interview, as he stands with the Council resolution that there is a dire need to clean up the abandoned area now laden with toxic chemicals that is now endangering human health and the community as a whole.
The 80-year-old village leader, who was also a former municipal vice mayor, blamed illegal small-scale miners and their financiers, who for so many years of their operations in Balabag, had led to the destruction of the environment.
He added that the illegal miners made money, but did not conduct their business responsibly in the area, and disposed highly-toxic chemicals and waste everywhere in blatant disregard for the environment. The community, on the other hand, did not receive any compensation nor remuneration for such destruction.
“They (TVIRD) cannot sanitize the area if they don’t have an Environmental Compliance Certificate and that’s why we are appealing to the DENR to speed up the issuance of the ECC,” Opay said.
Opay expressed confidence that the illegal miners will not return to Balabag due to the company’s tightened security. However, some fear that unless TVIRD begins operations soon, the same crime and lawlessness would return to the area; this time, possibly causing the complete and total destruction of Balabag’s natural resources.
Support from indigenous cultural communities
All other villages also voiced similar concerns on the environment issue, including Conacon, which is headed by its leader Timuay Luceno Manda, who is also a chieftain of Subanens in Bayog town.
Subanens comprise a significant segment of Bayog’s population.
Earlier, some 25 Subanen village chieftains under the Pikumpungan Subanen Lupa Pusaka or PSLP – an organization of Subanen tribe officials representing 8,000 Subanens – signed a resolution comprising the same concerns and urged the DENR through the Environmental Management Bureau to approve TVIRD’s application and emphasizing the need to rehabilitate the area.
A requisite to environmental clean-up
“Environmental clean-up is first priority to ensure the area is safe for the surrounding communities and to ensure TVIRD can start its mining operations right,” said TVIRD President lawyer Eugene Mateo, who aso expressed the company’s resolve to rid the area of toxic waste.
TVIRD is the Mineral Processing Sharing Agreement holder of the 4,779-hectare Balabag property and is authorized by the government to operate its gold-silver project in the area once beset by illegal mining operations for more than two decades.
These illegal mining operations used environmentally-harmful methods and did not pay up taxes to the government, and even employed children as laborers and had not provide social development projects as required by the mining laws.
Moreover, these illegal mining activities also created numerous geological hazard areas that pose potential landslides and soil erosion, aside from a number of casualties in the past.
Largely untouched after the illegal miners were ejected in October 2012, Balabag has now become replete with hundreds of abandoned mine tailings ponds contaminated with mercury and cyanide. It is widely believed that the hundreds of unsafe tunnels built by illegal miners may also contain hidden stockpiles of illegally acquired explosives, cyanide and nitric acid.
”TVIRD is unable to begin any reclamation and environmental clean-up activities until it has received all the necessary permits, particularly the ECC.” said Mateo.
He said TVIRD has invested some $25 million in exploration and pre-development work in Balabag and estimates an additional $25 million to bring it to commercial operations.
Since the enactment of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, TVIRD was the first local company to secure a mining license and has since operated its gold, silver, copper and zinc minerals processing operations in Canatuan in Siocon town in Zamboanga del Norte province.
The company is set to implement the roll-out of the same successful business model in Bayog as well as its sustainable social and environment programs, pending the DENR’s issuance of the necessary permit and the establishment of more viable mining policies.
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