Quezon town folk, execs seek stop to diggings
CALAUAG, QUEZON—Residents and local officials in this coastal town urged the National Museum and other national government agencies to put a stop to the treasure hunt digging inside the town center citing some residents’ complaints that the diggings had threatened ground stability.
“We want to call the attention of the National Museum to totally stop the treasure hunting activity,” said Dexter Sedeliz, Calauag local government officer, in a phone interview on Wednesday.
He said the continued digging inside a two-story house on Morato Street in Barangay 2 posed danger and caused anxiety among residents of this town some 230 kilometers southeast of Manila.
Sedeliz said Mayor Luisito Visorde had been trying to stop the digging since 2014. But Sedeliz admitted that officials were helpless.
“The owner is invoking that it is private property,” he said.
Christian Marana, chair of Barangay 2, said the house was now owned by a certain Ma. Katherine Nubla, a resident of Alabang, Muntinlupa.
‘Private property’
The Inquirer tried to reach Nubla to get her side but the efforts proved futile.
But lawyer Elaine Marie Laceda, Nubla’s counsel, had said in a letter in 2014 that the digging site was “private” property on which the government had no jurisdiction.
The letter was addressed to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Mines and Geosciences Bureau (DENR-MGB).
Laceda, in her letter to the DENR-MGB, said the piece of property had already been donated to Archbishop Diosdado Talamayan of the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao City in January 2014 to be used as “retirement home for priests.”
Residents interviewed by the Inquirer had expressed fear for their safety over the digging, which continued even in the dead of night.
One of the residents, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said the digging could loosen soil and cause their homes to collapse.
“The diggers were mysterious,” one resident said. “They have been living here for a long time but our barangay officials don’t even know them,” the resident said.
People in the area have no idea what kind of treasure was being sought.
“If they are looking for Yamashita treasures, they are in the wrong place,” a resident said.
During World War II, Japanese forces occupied three Quezon towns—Mauban, Plaridel and Atimonan.
