NOV 26, 2015

NR # 4030B

Irresponsible mining activities in Zambales under probe

Rep. Cheryl P. Deloso-Montalla is seeking a congressional inquiry into the alleged
hapless and irresponsible mining activities in her province of Zambales.
The ill-effects of nickel ore mining have been too hard to ignore as threats to the
environment, livelihood and inhabitants of the host communities in the municipalities of
Masinloc, Candelaria and Santa Cruz, the author of House Resolution 2495 stressed.
Through HR 2495, the author is urging the committees on Ecology and Natural
Resources to immediately conduct an investigation, in aid of legislation, on the
environmental tragedy which occurred in the municipalities of Masinloc, Candelaria and
Santa Cruz in the province of Zambales as a result of the hapless and irresponsible mining
activities in the area.
It is acknowledged that Zambales, particularly Masinloc, Candelaria and Santa
Cruz, are endowed with high grade mineral resources, which is why mining has become
the major economic driver of the said municipalities.
In a chronology of events through HR 2495, Rep. Deloso-Montalla cited that large
scale mining companies which were granted permits to operate in the areas were found, in
July 2014, to have been practicing unsystematic strip mining methods that led to
inefficient recovery of minerals and cause adverse environmental impact like siltation in
bodies of water and generation of dust.
Subsequently, she recalled, that a multidisciplinary team under the auspices of the
Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the department of Environment and Natural Resources
(DENR) conducted assessment in the mining sites and recommended the establishment
of silt ponds, silt traps, peripheral drainage canals and the institution of measures to ensure
slope stabilization and reforestation.
Far from abating the sordid and irreversible legacy of mining destruction, social
displacement and other correlative shoddy consequences brought about by profligate
mining operations, mining companies operating in the area are as fervidly posed to
scrounge, fleece or even sack up to the hilt -- at the municipalities' rich mineral
resources, the lady lawmaker lamented.
She revealed that in Santa Cruz alone, the impact of hapless mining activities prior
to the onslaught of Super Typhoon Lando early this year was estimated to be worth some
half a billion pesos in losses in terms of food, rice, mango and fish production.

Despite an earlier MGB suspension of operations order, mining companies still

continue to surreptitiously haul, transport and export their stockpile of laterite ore, thereby
rendering said government order toothless and ineffective, she revealed.
Even as Typhoon Lando, October of 2015, brought its own havoc to the country in
general, the lady lawmaker said, the natural whip of nature revealed the sad extend of
devastation resulting from the clandestine mining activities.
Along with torrential rains, thick reddish-brown mud flow deluged from the
mountains, where large scale mining companies operate, into the lowlands and devoured
everything along its path, from houses to barangay halls, farms animals and farm produce
of farmers and fisher folks, and covered farmlands and heavily silted river systems and
waterways which would eventually destroy the ecosystems, she pointed out.
She added that the said mud flow prevented the fast absorption of flood water,
which in some barangays in Santa Cruz reached 12 feet deep, by the soil and resulted in
the slow recession of flood water that further aggravated the damage brought about by the
weather disturbance.
It took typhoon Lando to reveal a never-seen-before grim and grotesque picture of
the communities surrounding the mining sites in Masinloc, Candelaria and santa Cruz,
she added.
Lando alone left damage to the millions of pesos, not to mention the loss of an
innocent life and more than 20,000 families or 100,000 individuals suffering from the
havoc of the catastrophe, she said, adding that two weeks after the typhoon, the people
were still reeling from the ramifications of the mudflow.
This injustice must not be brushed off and condoned as it is enshrined in Section
16, Article II of the 1987 constitution that the State shall protect and enhance the right of
the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm of nature, the
lady author concluded.
HR 2495 is now pending with the Committee on Rules for its appropriate
consideration and action. (30) dpt