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PRESS RELEASE
February 8, 2007
Communities
belonging to the Acupan Upper Camps Community Livelihood Association (ACUCCLA)
in Brgy. Virac, Itogon, have barricaded the two main portals of Level
1500 of the Acupan mines following the Mines and Geosciences Bureau’s
(MGB) decision denying the residents’ petition for injunction against
mining operations therein. Benguet Corporation tried to re-operate the
said level starting last week. The communities say that BenguetCorp’s
re-mining of Acupan at this level will compromise the safety of their
homes.
The MGB denied the petition, saying it was devoid of merit.
ACCUCLA residents say that around 60 miners, mostly from Zambales, tried
to enter the portals last January 29. About 100 residents however, quickly
blocked the portals. On the same date, Mr. Melvin Calde, a legal counsel
for BenguetCorp tried to get ACUCCLA members to bow to the MGB decision
and allow the company’s contract miners to enter Level 1500.
“You filed a formal petition, and the MGB decided against it,”
he told them. “You must abide by the MGB’s decision. Otherwise
you will be saying that there is no law here in Acupan.”
“We, the people, are the law,” ACUCCLA leader Vicente Guinat
replied. ACUCCLA members believe that they can sustain their barricade
of the Level 1500 portals indefinitely.
“The only ore left here is in the mine pillars. We know this because
we worked the mines for the company before the 1990 earthquake forced
it to shut them down and allow us to live and make a living on the surface.
Mining the pillars this close to the surface will make the ground beneath
our homes collapse. We cannot allow that to happen,” an ACCUCLA
member said.
The ACUCCLA first staged a barricade at the Level 1500 portals in 2002.
They sustained it for several months until the end of that year, when
they got the MGB to declare part of Level 1500 a Temporary No Mining Zone
(TNMZ). For the next three-and-a-half years, they kept watch over this
zone. Then in 2006, they claimed that BenguetCorp had violated it and
petitioned the MGB to restrain the company from continuing to do so. Their
petition, however, only served as an opening for the MGB to issue a final
decision on the fate of Level 1500 – a decision that favored Benguet
Corporation. #
Reference:
Ruben Fianisor
ACUCCLA Spokesperson
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