Mining facilities in Vizcaya burned

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya — The multimillion-peso mining facilities of an Australian firm in a remote mineral-rich mountain village here were destroyed by fire allegedly started by a still unidentified group yesterday.

Senior Superintendent Rogelio Damazo, provincial police director,  said they have already dispatched a composite team to investigate the incident in Barangay Didipio in Kasibu town, where the project management office of the Australasia-Philippines Mining Inc. (IPMA) is based.

Besides personnel from the police provincial office, the composite team, Damazo said, is also composed of experts from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and Crime Laboratory Unit and the Bureau of Fire and Protection.

Based on reports from the field, the incident took place around 1:30 a.m. yesterday. IPMA personnel said the fire totally destroyed their office located at the foothills of the gold and copper-rich Didipio Hill, particularly in sitio Bacbac, where the firm’s exploration equipment, communication facilities and sets of computers were housed.

Investigators have yet to determine the cost of the damage caused by the blaze.

Engineer Arnel Arrojo, project manager of the Didipio Gold-Copper Project, however, said that the fire destroyed priceless data which their company have gathered in more than 10 years of exploration activities in the area.

Arrojo said that the foreign firm had invested millions of pesos for obtaining those data, which is very relevant in their multibillion mining venture in Didipio village.

The incident came a day after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement  (FTAA) granted to the Australian mining company, which the national government had contracted for the Didipio mining project.

The Didipio project, the first to be granted  FTAA under the Mining Act of 1995, is one of the more than 20 flagship mining projects in the country, which the national government hopes to generate millions of funds for the country’s economy.

For the Didipio venture, the government hopes to generate at least P30 billion during its 15 years of operation, aside from the millions of local taxes and hundreds of jobs it would generate for the host local government units.

Dominated by the indigenous communities, Didipio, around 50 kilometers from this capital town, lies in the remote mountain boundary of Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino. The Nagtipunan town of Quirino, which endorsed the project last year, is also claiming the area as part of its territory.

Earlier last year, the 13-member Nueva Vizcaya provincial board unanimously endorsed the Didipio project amid fierce opposition from the Catholic Church and anti-mining advocates here.

Last month, the anti-mining advocates filed a petition for mandamus, asking the court to compel the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to cancel the Environmental Compliance Certificate it issued for the Didipio project.

The petitioners claimed that the mining permit was issued without the prior consent of the concerned villagers, which they claimed as one of the prerequisites before issuing such a permit.