August 4, 2016 yan ang araw ng kaganapan na maituturing nating isang PANALO!
Panalo ng sambayanang Pilipino na nakikibaka laban sa pagsira ng kalikasan!
Last August 4 the DEPARTMENT of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) secretary Regina Lopez announced the suspension of Claver Mineral Development Corporation (CMDC) in Surigao del Norte and expressed more companies in Caraga region are still on review.
Lopez said the suspension of mining operations in Surigao del Norte during the session with the different civil society organizations.
Lopez added the ongoing audit for the mining areas in Mindanao is not just technical.
“It does not only cover the technical aspect in auditing these mining firms but the audit also has the social aspect, if there is a community that has been suffering and affected this cannot be acceptable. We will also test the waters, evaluate the environmental compliance certificates; we are evaluating everything,” said Lopez.
Leo Jasareno, senior undersecretary of DENR and heads the mining audit team, said the auditing would end within the month.
“Hopefully we will complete everything by the end of August. We are covering in our audit 40 mining firms, 23 from Mindanao and then we will move on to the 65 non-metallic firms for audit by September,” said Jasareno.
Jasareno pointed out the audit will be a basis for the final judgment whether to allow these companies to operate.
“We will wait for the audit to finish, it is a comprehensive study and that will finally give us a guide on how to come up with the decision,” he said.
The three mining operations based in Caraga Region mentioned by Lopez are Taganito Mining Corporation (TMC) which is operating in the town of Claver in Surigao del Norte while Greenstone Resources Corporation (GRC) is in Tubod town, Surigao del Norte and San Roque Metals Incorporation (SRMI) is based in the coastal town of Tubay, Agusan del Norte.
President Rodrigo Duterte during the environmental forum cited how SRMI mining operation has allegedly destroyed some areas in Mindanao.