By Erwin Mascariñas
Correspondent
MADRID, Surigao del Sur – The bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Tandag has called for an investigation into mining operations which he blamed for the damages caused by floods and mudslides in the towns of Carrascal, Cantilan, Madrid, Carmen and Lanuza when tropical storm “Basyang” battered the region last week.
“We call on the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, regional and national offices, civil society organizations, and other relevant institutions and government agencies to organize a multi-stakeholder, multi-disciplinary team that will look intently into the matter,” reads parts of a pastoral letter by The Most Rev. Nereo Odchimar.
Odchimar said the pastoral letter was a response to the the call of residents for an investigation.
Odchimar said residents reported that the floodwaters “came so fast,” and in some areas, logs were swept downstream, destroying houses and other structures in their path.
The Regional Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council said at least five people from the town of Carrascal died as a result of landslides in the villages of Gamutan and Babuyan during the onslaught of the storm .
Babuyan suffered the most devastation as tons of muddy debris and logs cascaded down into the village, leaving several homes destroyed and covered in mud and logs.
Chito Trillanes, a representative of the Roman Catholic’s local Social Action Center during the August 2016 mining audit as a “third party expert,” Babuyan is directly below the area where the Carrascal Nickel Corp. (CNC) operates.
“There, you will find large perimeter canals, dikes as well as ponds that hold water. Unfortunately, the question is, how much pressure will it able to hold on to before that water holding facility could give way and burst. We know that these structures are held on by logs as well as excavated soil. Now, how much rain does it need to denude the area and cause a massive landslide into the community directly below it,” said Trillanes even as he supported calls for a no-nonsense investigation.
Trillanes said large-scale mining and the continuous logging opertations have aggravated the effects of climate change in the province, and made communities more vulnerable.
“The ongoing mining operations in our watershed forest reserves was the prime cause of what just happened in Cantilan, as well as in Carrascal,” he said.
The logs, he said, had been intended for the expansion of a mining site.
Trilanes said the trees were cut and an entire area was bulldozed and “left hidden for the mining company to stay away from paying forest charges.”
He alleged that in the inventory, “they would just claim that what they cut were trees that did not exceed 15 centimeters in diameter, thus cheating the government in terms of fees and fines.”
Irene Rubi, a Purok 3 president in Cabas-an in Cantilan, said their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
“I’ve been living here for 24 years now. This is the first time we have experienced such devastation. We did have floods in the past but never like this,” said Rubi.
She described the floowaters as “thick, muddy, and rusty in color.”
Rubi said, “The sad part now is that most of our crops are damaged, and most of our homes are damaged as well.”
She claimed the local government sent people from a mining company to assess the needs of villagers.
“Why from the mining company?” Rubi asked rhetorically. “Why can’t our LGU start an investigation in defense of the people?”
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