FREEDOM is like fresh air, and our city was literally gasping to survive. It was a challenge to keep things in perspective. Nasty words were exchanged, black propaganda flourished and Facebook turned from pretty to sour. Though it seemed like all evil was personified by the incumbent and could do nothing right, it became hazardous and toxic when one focuses on the person and not the act. To steer back to to civility was put on hold as secrets began to unravel before our eyes.
Pictures sent by email and even posted on social media, of massive destruction of the mountains and hills bordering Iponan River. It turned out that many years have gone by and hydraulic mining was virtually killing not only the river, but also the very culture and traditional livelihood of our Higaonon brothers who populated the rural barangays along Iponan River. Sendong was unavoidable, but not hydraulic mining and barges turning Iponan River to virtual silt and bed of rocks. Gone were the farmers who now turned to the lucrative flush mining, where powerful machines liquefied the hills, flowing to the river, where the barges would now sift through the rocks and soil and extract gold.
As in most social movements, there were ties which developed. Shifting from the failed move to remove the former mayor, Save CDO Now Movement joined forces with Bangon Kagayan led by Nixon Baban. Their group was supportive of the recall initiative and they seemed to have been able to gather hard bodies, unlike that of Save CDO which was more of a group of individualistic and strong personalities. This led to the formation of SULOG, with the environment as its’ primary advocacy. Failing to move our national agencies to stop illegal mining, we resorted to our own device of exposing what Kagayanons hardly knew about or even dismissed as outright lies. City Hall maintained that those gargantuan machines were only dredging the river. The DENR, the MGB and the EMB maintained further that their hands were tied as City Hall had issued permits to these enterprises. And to which I countered, “is the mayor more powerful than the president when it comes to rivers and environment?” There was not even a constituted City Mining and Regulatory Board (CMRB) which is by law the one who will deliberate and recommend all activities concerning such activities.
And so we set out one morning, led by Edwin Dael to see for ourselves these so-called barges. Crossing the strong currents of Iponan River, we did find one barge, with two Chinese nationals with expired tourist visas on board the barge along with some paraphernalia, among them a weighing scale normally used for weighing minerals. These barges were definitely not dredging but mining for gold. Another barge yielded a pistol. The police took the Chinese national into custody but by some strange twist of events, the captured alien was set free with the prosecutor finding no reason to charge him in court. A rat was beginning to smell. But a barge swept by strong currents of storm Pablo showed to one and all, what these barges looked like. They can no longer be denied.
We took matters to the Court of Appeals and prayed for the issuance of a Writ of Kalikasan. The proceedings were quite surreal, with private citizens pleading before the Court and compel the State to protect Iponan River. This prompted me to request for some time to speak, not normally granted, where I lamented the situation where the very government, both national and local, were objecting the issuance of the Writ. Needless to say, we were granted the writ and we now see the result of the court action where our local and national government agencies ran the risk of contempt of court if such violations were still to be tolerated. But then again, I wonder why the vocal broadcaster who was lambasting our citizens initiative during the time of the former administration now heads the City Council Committee on the Environment while the true-blue environmentalist Edwin Dael, I just found out, a month ago, was removed as head of the CMRB and transferred to the department in-charge of tents and chairs among other things such as the programs held at that tiled and concrete rotunda called Gaston Park.