The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will look into possible violations of quarry permit holders around Mayon Volcano, which residents in Guinobatan, Albay blamed for the landslide of ash that buried houses at the height of Typhoon Rolly’s onslaught.
This developed as Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu ordered the immediate suspension of all quarry operations in the area on Monday upon the order of President Duterte who earlier conducted an aerial inspection and visited victims of the typhoon in Guinobatan town. This is not the first time that the DENR ordered the suspension of quarry operations in the province.
DENR Undersecretary for Policy, Planning and International Affairs Jonas R. Leones told the BusinessMirror that Typhoon Rolly, which caused a landslide of volcanic ash that killed at least 3 persons, bared “alarming” geological hazards that need to be investigated.
He said such geological hazards call for a comprehensive assessment and warrants the updating of the province’s existing geohazard map.
“There’s an instruction from the President, similar to what we did the last time in 2017. We recommended and suggested to the LGU [local government unit] to suspend all LGU-issued quarry permits,” Leones said.
In implementing President Duterte’s order, he said, Cimatu has also called for a thorough investigation to determine possible violations of quarry permit holders.
He said the DENR in Region 5 has been instructed to coordinate with concerned LGUs to enforce the suspension orders as soon as possible, noting that the LGUs are the ones that issue quarry permits in the province, particularly around Mayon Volcano.
According to Leones, out of the 100 or so quarry permit holders in the area, only one was issued by the DENR. All others were issued by the LGU.
Leones said based on the feedback he gathered from the DENR Region 5 office, quarry operators have gone beyond their designated, or prescribed area of operation. Many quarry permits cover extraction of lahar from rivers covered with lahar. But some operators, he said, are extracting quarry materials outside their designated quarry area.
“Some of the ‘permittees’ are getting their quarry materials outside the river bed. This also happened in Zambales. If you get quarry materials in sloping area, or upstream, this is dangerous because it causes instability,” he said.
“Our way forward is to come up immediately with a policy wherein we are confining the permittees where they can get quarry materials. Remember these are LGU-issued permits that’s why we are presuming that the LGU issued the permit based on maps provided by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau [MGB] to the LGU,” he said.
Leones said that an LGU that issues a permit inside so-called no-go zones as identified by the MGB makes local officials liable.
But Leones said generally, suspending quarry permits impacts on the country’s production capacity, and ensure a stable supply of quarry materials for the construction industry.
The problem of stopping quarry operation, he said, is that it will also affect rehabilitation efforts.
“Remember, we need to rebuild as part of rehabilitation,” he said. It is for this reason, he added, that the DENR lifts suspension orders on the condition and assurance that mitigation and corrective measures will be immediately undertaken.
Last, he said that DENR experts from the MGB and perhaps the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority will be called to reassess and update the various geological hazards in Albay and come up with an updated geohazard map for the province.
The Bicol region, particularly the Province of Albay, is known for its resilience and disaster preparedness and recognized for best practices in balancing environmental protection and natural resources conservation with development. In 2016, Albay was declared as United Nations, Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization Biosphere Reserve.
The onslaught of Rolly and typhoon-induced rainfall that dumped a huge volume of rainwater triggered the landslide of quarry materials that caught many barangays unprepared amid repeated warnings and calls for immediate evacuation made by the country’s weather bureau.
1 comment
please take a look at the quarry operations in Montalban, Rizal also.