DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 2, 2014) – Philippine authorities have seized chemical fertilizers and cyanide, including dozens of blasting caps, commonly used by illegal gold miners in Compostela Valley province in Mindanao region.
Security officials said military and government agents, armed with search warrants, swooped down in Nabunturan town on March 31 and arrested several people in connection with the illegal selling of the chemicals.
The raiders seized at least 275 kilos of ammonium nitrate, 569 pieces of blasting caps and 1,132 meters of time fuse and three kilos of cyanide in the town, according to army Captain Alberto Caber, a spokesman for the Eastern Mindanao Command.
“Authorities are still investigating those arrested to determine if they are communist rebels or selling those illegal chemicals to the New People’s Army,” Caber told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said the operations were carried out by soldiers and members of the National Bureau of Investigation and the local police force. “All the chemicals were handed over to the Explosive Ordnance Division of the Philippine Army for proper documentation,” he said, adding those arrested will be criminally charged in court for the illegal sale, manufacture and possession of explosives.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Rainier Cruz, the Eastern Mindanao Command chief, commended the soldiers who took part in the operations that led to the recovery of chemicals.
The military did not say how many people were arrested in the operations, but the province is a known gold-rush area in the southern Philippines where tens of thousands of illegal miners continue to operate using homemade explosives and cyanide to extract gold and silver from the earth.
Cruz said the chemicals are also being used by rebels in the manufacture of landmines and homemade bombs they used to attack military and police targets in the region. The rebels have been fighting for decades for the establishment of a communist state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)
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