ARMANDO Malicse, officer-in-charge (OIC) of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) 7, the agency at the center of the blame game now being played in relation to the landslide that hit mostly Sitio Sindulan in Barangay Tina-an, offered an interesting insight into the dilemma confronting government execs on the matter.
“According to our regulation, once there is a situation like this, only the operation in a danger zone must be stopped because we don’t want also to sacrifice the total economic distribution of cement, especially with the ‘Build, Build’ project of the president. If you stop quarrying, it will affect the making of cement and that would entail the shortage of about 220,000 bags a day. That is not healthy,” Malicse said.
The MGB 7 OIC was talking about the possible liability of Apo Land and Quarry Corp. (ALQC), whose earth-moving operation reshaped parts of the Naga mountains. Malicse was careful to differentiate natural phenomenon from quarry operations when he talked about the firm’s liability. Unfortunately for him, all that people could see from the landslide site photos was what quarrying did to the mountains.
Which would bring us to why the City Government of Naga allowed the destruction of its mountains in the first place, which further brings us back to the dilemmas posed by governments allowing mining to flourish as an economic activity. Those are dilemmas confronting the government in every mining site, with the landslide in Itogon in Benguet that occurred immediately before the one in Naga as another example.
Before the landslide in Barangay Tina-an, the City Government of Naga did issue a cease-and-desist order on ALQC, apparently concerned with the dangers posed by the carved mountains. ALQC, which has mining rights in the area, claimed it had not even started its operations in the landslide sites of Tagaytay and Sindulan when the landslide happened.
After the landslide, it is now imperative for all concerned—officials of the government and the mining firms specifically—to arrive at a consensus on how to more effectively strike a balance between economic concerns and people’s safety.