IT was done the military way —swift, on target and well orchestrated.
The targets were 18 adits, horizontal underground small-scale mining tunnels, simultaneously blasted in the afternoon of February 14 under the command of Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu. The secretary is, after all, a retired general of the Philippine Armed Forces.
An explosive Valentine, the observing team said in jest. But it was no joke for Cimatu who expressed his sentiments both on the side of empathy and on enforcing environmental laws.
Small-scale mining in the Cordillera region remains to be a bane as there has so far been no declared Minahang Bayan where small-scale miners may operate. This despite the decades-old appeal of the small-scale miners for an area to be cleared for their operation.
Their status therefore stands as illegal, although a tolerance principle is practiced in some areas because hundreds of thousands depend on small-scale mining for their livelihood.
Peering through the tunnels, Cimatu expressed his worry about the safety of miners, with reports of dying men trapped in the tunnels quite a common story.
“I sympathize with these people. It’s dangerous. I hear that sometimes when something bad happens like somebody dying inside, it’s not even reported anymore. “ he said. He hopes some other form of safer livelihood can be found by these displaced miners.
Then there is the use of cyanide, a dangerous chemical for processing the gold that ends in water bodies or the environment. Cimatu stressed the importance of having small-scale mining regulated within a designated Minahang Bayan.
The blasting of the tunnels at the periphery of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) land expanse in Baguio City marked the launch of the National Task Force Mining Challenge (NTF-MC) that will start going around areas where illegal mining is reported to put a stop to this.
“It hurts, but it’s the law,” he said.
It was while Cimatu was watching a cadets’ parade at the PMA grounds when a huge landslide at the surrounding mountains caught his eye. He was told that beneath the landslide were underground tunnels. So, he set to work and established the NTF- MC on January 26.
Shortly after the sighting, Cimatu had five teams inspect the tunnels and mining items were confiscated: 53 adits, 34 drums for cyanide (both empty and full) and more than 2,000 kilograms of ore from Cab-owan, Last Creek, Paltekan 1 and Paltekan 2 and Demo area.