QUARRY. Davao City Councilor and committee on environment and national resources chief Diosdado Angelo Mahipus said he will review the contracts of quarry permits. Mahipus said that many quarry operations are using heavy equipment, even though their permits are only for small scale operations like 10 wheeler trucks, which destroy roads in the process. (Paulo C. Rizal/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — A city councilor here has ordered a stringent review of the quarry permits in the city after what he described as a “monopoly” of quarry operations.
City Councilor Diosdado Angelo Mahipus Sr, head of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, said that a group has used several names just to obtain quarry permits but in truth, it was owned by the same group.
“When we conducted an inspection, my committee found out that there is one group, one person controlling 16 quarries, with different names. They misrepresented by putting names there but really there is only one owner,” he said.
Mahipus said that most of these quarries were owned by barangay captains who have cordial relationship with him. For Mahipus, such situation became what he called a “perennial” problems for politicians like him.
“It has always been the perennial problem of politicians like us, because every time we investigate, a barangay captain would say that he owns the operation. So if you are a politician, they will make threats that you will no longer win in their baranggay on the next election,” he said.
Mahipus’ statement came as a response to Larry Maranan, a barangay kagawad from Mandug, who complained of the excessive quarry sites in Mandug and its adjacent barangays.
“Kagawad, not to brag but you know that during the last elections, I did not have any baranggay captains. Maybe I had two or three who helped out, but this is not me using that to get even, but I am doing this as an assurance that I will leave no stone unturned to overhaul the operations in our district,” Mahipus said.
Maranan complained about the road conditions in his barangay brought about by the operation of quarry pit mines during the public forum of the Public Scoping of the Davao Coastline and Port Development Project on Wednesday, Nov. 9 at the Sangguniang Panglungsod Session.
“Mandug has contributed to the development of the city, has generated revenues and jobs, and yet our roads have been neglected,” Maranan said.
Maranan has expressed concern of the possibility that developers may use Barangay Mandug as an inland source for extracting the earth materials needed for the reclamation project to create a landmass of 214.61 hectares along the coastline of Sta. Ana Wharf up to Brgy. Bucana. He said that Mandug is the city’s primary source of sand and gravel.
“Yesterday (Nov. 7), I was in the CENRO office in Agdao, and there are already too many quarry permits being processed. We as residents of Brgy. Mandug and Callawa are in the middle of crisis because of our roads. The roads are wrecked,” he added.
Mahipus said the city government only issues permits for small scale operations, noting that some quarry operators are using large scale equipment.
“These quarry operations should not be using heavy equipment because their permits are only for small scale operations, but they are using big backhoes, excavators and that is why our environment gets destroyed. Then they use ten wheeler trucks, some even use container vans to transport the gravel, they enter our roads and wrecks them,” Mahipus said.
Mahipus assured Maranan that the aggregates for the reclamation project will have to be sourced outside the city since it is a large scale operation. “Our quarry operations here should be small scale only, for small scale needs. This kind of reclamation requires a large scale operation and must not be sourced here in the city, it has to be somewhere else,” Mahipus said. (davaotoday.com)
