A group of village officials and residents of Lingayen, Pangasinan province, is pressing the Office of the Ombudsman to speed up the resolution of their complaint for illegal mining against provincial officials, led by Gov. Amado Espino Jr., and officers of mining and building companies.
Vicente Oliquino, one of the complainants and head of the antimining group Aro Mo Ako Sambayanan (Aromas), said officials of the provincial government and of Alexandra Mining and Oil Ventures and Xypher Builders Inc. were allegedly behind illegal black sand or magnetite mining operations in the guise of an ecotourism project in the province.
The provincial government said it would issue a reply soon to what it said was a “rehashed” issue.
“We hope there will soon be a resolution to the case we filed in January 2012. We want a legal precedent that black sand mining cannot be allowed in our province,” said Oliquino, a member of the council of Barangay (village) Sabangan, Lingayen.
“We have been waiting for a ruling for more than two years now,” he said.
Oliquino said his group had received reports that pointed to the continued extraction of black sand along the Lingayen shore to this day.
In their 12-page complaint in 2012, the village officials and residents said officers of the firms Alexandra Mining and Oil Ventures Inc. and Xypher Builders Inc. were liable for violating the country’s mining laws.
The complainants accused Espino, Lingayen Provincial Administrator Rafael Baraan, consultant Eric Acuna, Pangasinan housing officer Alvin Bigay and several village captains of conspiring to allow the illegal magnetite mining.
They said Espino gave Xypher a gratuitous permit but the document specifically disallowed the extraction of black sand from areas within 500 meters from the coast and 200 m from the mean low tide level along the beach.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) has ordered Xypher to pay P50,000 as penalty for operating without an environmental compliance certificate (ECC).
The DENR also issued a cease-and-desist order against black sand mining operations of Alexandra Mining and Xypher Builders along the coastal areas of Lingayen Gulf in the villages of Sabangan, Malimpuec, Capandanan and Estanza.
Joel Salvador, EMB regional director, said under DENR Administrative Order No. 2003-30, golf courses had been classified as environmentally critical projects, thus requiring an ECC.
The golf course is a part of an ecotourism project of the provincial government of Pangasinan in Sabangan, Estanza, Malimpuec and Capandanan in Lingayen.