DENR officials raid gold mines in highland Central Mindanao town

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — An inter-agency environmental protection task force had seized equipment and other provisions in small gold mines in Barangay Datal Blao in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat that its members had closed down in an operation assisted by the police and the military.

Radio reports on Saturday, July 26, in the cities of Koronadal, Kidapawan and Cotabato stated that the anti-illegal mining operation last week in Sitio Datal Saub in Barangay Datal Blao was carried out by officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources 12, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau 12 and the Environmental Management Bureau 12.

The operation was carried out on order of the lawyer Felix Alicer, DENR-12’s regional executive director.

A written statement from the DENR-12 that reporters in Central Mindanao received on Saturday mentioned explicitly that the raid of the illegal, small gold mining sites in Sitio Datal Saub was premised on reports by various sectors about the discoloration of the water flowing downstream the Dalol River, which spring from forests in the area, blamed on “banlas,” or clandestine gold mining, in watersheds around.

The DENR-12 said the raid and subsequent shutdown of the gold mines in Sitio Datal Saub was supported by personnel of the Army’s 39th Infantry Battalion and different units of the Police Regional Office-12, whose officials are also members of the environmental protection task force led by Alicer.

Radio stations in Koronadal City, including the Catholic DXOM of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate congregation, reported on Saturday morning that the raiding team had confiscated mining equipment and long hydraulic hoses found in abandoned makeshift shelters close to the mining tunnels.

Blaan tribal leaders had told reporters that they want the DENR-12 to sustain its anti-illegal mining operations in their ancestral lands in Columbio, said to have vast deposits of copper and gold.