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November Mourns
By Marilou M. Aguirre
davaotoday.com
Published: Jan. 28, 2006
DAVAO CITY -- Mount Diwata, the gold-rush site in Compostela Valley Province more popularly known as Diwalwal, made it to the headlines in October, when a series of tragedies occurred in its tunnels and mountains.
On Oct. 26, the 1.8 km-long Sunshine Tunnel operated by the JB Management and Mining Corporation (JBMMC) collapsed. The implosion killed 31 miners and workers. A day later, poison gas seeped through another tunnel, killing a miner and nearly poisoning 11 workers.
Days before, on Oct. 14, a fire razed 189 houses of poor settlers and killed a nine-year-old child. Because of this series of tragedies, Diwalwal became a national concern.
By November, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered the closure of the mining operations in Diwalwal, but small-scale miners and workers opposed the move, believing that it would worsen their dire conditions and would eventually dislocate them from the area. Arroyo also ordered the setting up of a mining disaster rescue mechanism through the Southern Mindanao Regional Disaster Coordinating Council to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The party-list group Bayan Muna and environment group Panalipdan soon after conducted a fact-finding and relief mission in Diwalwal. One of their recommendations was that all concerned government agencies should conduct a "thorough and transparent" investigation of the incidents. The mission added that the JBMMC and the Arroyo government "must be held accountable for these incidents, and indemnify the victims of the tragedies."
The mining operations in Diwalwal started in 1980s. Since then, a series of murders, violence and gas-poisoning incidents occurred in the area with alarming frequency. The incidents are believed to be the handiwork of
those with vested interests and who wanted to drive the people out of Diwalwal.
In 2002, the government declared Diwalwal as part of the 8,100-hectare mineral reservation area supposedly to protect the country's mineral resources from plunder. But now, the lives of the more than 40,000 small-scale miners in Diwalwal remain miserable, their future bleak. (Marilou M. Aguirre/davaotoday.com)
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