With the present setup, the existing mining operators and the small-scale miners are left with areas that are almost completely mined. A small-scale miner told davaotoday.com that their “corpo” or joint venture with other small-scale miners wanted to go mine deeper. This can be very expensive but the constraints have increased ever since the new setup was in place.
The fact-finding mission, meanwhile, has recommended, among others, that all concerned government agencies, including the Commission on Human Rights, should conduct a “thorough and transparent” investigation of the incidents. It also said that the JBMMC and the Arroyo government “must be held accountable for these incidents, and indemnify the victims of the tragedies.”
NRMDC, which has continued the Victory Tunnel operations, had declared losses from last year’s operations. But it had planned to make an initial public offering, which Tito interpreted to mean that the government was offering Diwalwal to foreign miners. Consequently, he said, all the Diwalwal miners would become mere workers. Worse, they could be booted out of Diwalwal.
In the early 2000s, Tito was at the forefront of the series of protest actions by small-scale miners and workers protest against the foreign-owned Southeast Mindanao Gold Mining Corp, which had a tie-up with JBMMC. In those years before the government took over, a series of murders, violence and gas-poisoning incidents occurred here to, according to Tito, force the Diwalwal folk out of the gold-rush site.
The series of violence and tragedies last October, Tito now said, was no different. He said it could be the handiwork of those who have vested interests and who wanted to drive the people out of Diwalwal.
They have succeeded, at least in the case of Alma. She said she is just waiting for JBMMC’s plans for her – whether it will indemnify her, for example – and then she and her children will go back to Northern Mindanao, out of Diwalwal for good. (Daisy C. Gonzales, davaotoday.com)
