Duterte’s mining crackdown must not spare sacred cows – think tank
MANILA – No mining company must be spared when the government starts cracking down on mining industry in light of President Rodrigo Duterte’s desire to ban open-pit mining, a former Cabinet member said.
Terry Ridon, the l ead convenor of think tank Infra Watch, made the call after at least 39 miners died in a landslide in Itogon, Benguet amid the onslaught of typhoon “Ompong.” At least 30 people are still missing from the incident.
“There’s should be no sacred cows in this renewed impact assessment of mining in the country. If government officials are found to have served as protectors of illegal
MANILA – The mining company that owned the landslide- hit site in Itogon, Benguet denied they had a profit- sharing agreement with small- scale miners who continued to work the abandoned site.
“Let me just clarify... in that area, there is no profit- sharing scheme,” Benguet Corporation’s AVP f or Corporate Communications and Special Projects Ma. Anna Vicedo- Montes said on the
mining operations, they should all be brought to court. If they have benefited from the pillage of the soil and endangered the lives of our people, they should be made to pay the price,” Ridon said.
“Do it, Mr. President. Unless the mining i ndustry can comply with strict standards to prevent the loss of lives and environmental destruction, the sun should finally set on mining,” Ridon, a lawyer who served as the Commissioner of the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor, said in a statement.
Duterte earlier said that the government will probe the dangers of open- pit mining in light of the tragic incident in Itogon. GMA News TV program “State of the Nation with Jessica Soho”.
“There i s no 60- 40 agreement, there is no deal like that with the small-scale illegal miners there,” Vicedo- Montes emphasized.
Benguet Corporation’s ceased mining operations at the site in the late 1990s, but small-scale miners continued to occupy the area.
No less than 18 bodies have been dug up from the
Ridon claimed that the absence of strict industry regulations caused numerous problems such as l arge- scale operations are being undertaken by small- scale mining groups. In other cases, royalty fees not being paid because the government failed to declare these areas as mineral reservation areas.
On Tuesday, Edgar Allan Tabel of the Interior and Local Government department’s Central Office Disaster Information Coordinating Center said i n another statement that while the local government of Itogon implemented preemptive evacuation before typhoon “Ompong” hit l and on