Court stops small Mt. Province miners BONTOC, Mountain Province—The Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 35 here ordered small-scale mining in Barangay Mainit stopped to prevent danger to human lives and irreparable damage to the environment arising from “crude, indiscriminate, unsupervised diggings” among other activities. “To ensure that stoppage orders are implemented with urgency, checkpoints should be set up to apprehend illegal transporters of ore and to apprehend and to file charges against illegal loggers as well,” said Judge Joseph Patnaan in his resolution. By Dexter A. See | Sep. 19, 2014 The court decision stemmed from a petition for writ of mandamus and a permanent protection order filed by the heirs of Elizabeth G. Okoren against private small-scale miners led by a certain Christopher Culalad. According to the facts of the case, the Okorens own a property near five vertical shafts set up by Culalad’s group to mine high grade gold, an allegation that the respondents have denied. In their complaint, the heirs of Okoren said the artisanal mining adjacent to their ricefields would lead to the denudation of the Mainit forest due to the unabated cutting of trees to supply the timber needed in the tunnels. The court found that gold ores extracted from the ricefields were loaded into trucks and transported to as far as Manila despite the absence of mining and transport permits. Included as respondents to the civil case are the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer (PENRO) of Mountain Province, the regional technical director of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, Governor Leonard G. Mayaen, Police Chief Benjamin Challoy along with the Police Regional Office and the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Photographic evidence showed murky and polluted water in a creek, eroded mountain sides, sacks filled with soil and rocks awaiting transport and piles of pine timber and lumber intended for use in the mine shafts.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 11:17:15 +0000
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