Illegal sand mining by Chinese firm stopped

BACOLOR, Pampanga—The illegal extraction of black sand by a Chinese company operating in this town made rich from sand spewed out by Mt. Pinatubo’s eruptions in 1991 was stopped last week by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) and the provincial government, documents showed.

In an affidavit of undertaking on Aug. 27, Peter Lu, manager of Xing Fufa Mining Corp., confirmed that the company had “in its possession the machinery in the operation of black sand” at its plant in Barangay (village) Maliwalu beside the FVR Megadike here.

But the firm’s two magnetic drum separators, Lu said, were “not operational.”

Xing Fufa, he said, manufactures and sells “vibro sand,” which is made fine by sifting. The company, he said, “is not in the business of operating black sand.”

“All electrical connections in the said machine, pulley and fan belt are presently dismantled, and all other parts are sealed and not operational,” Lu said.

Arthur Punsalan, chief of the Pampanga provincial government’s environment and natural resources office, said an inspection on Aug. 27 showed that the equipment was not working.

There was, however, a mound of black sand separated from stocks of sand obtained from the Pasig-Potrero River. The volume could fill a dump truck, a photograph showed.

“We were told that Xing Fufa removed the black sand so the sand it packs in sacks is ideal for plastering,” Punsalan said on Monday.

The firm managed to operate in Bacolor town through an operating supply agreement with Rolando Basco, who holds a small-scale industrial sand and gravel permit issued by the MGB, Punsalan said.

In a related development, quarry collections by the provincial government under Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda have reached P1.167 billion from July 2010 to Aug. 31 this year, Punsalan said in a report.

The amount was pooled from the P150 sand tax and the P150 to P250 administrative fee per truckload.

The provincial administrator has yet to give a report on the 40-percent share of villages and the 30-percent share of towns and cities from the P150 sand tax. The provincial government gets a 30-percent share.

The distribution of income from sand quarrying is allowed under the Local Government Code of 1991.

The provincial government also collected P54.7 million from the operations of weighing scales, P2.6 million from non-Pampanga-based trucks that use the scales, P20.3 million in fees from the accreditation of motor vehicles and P3.5 million from other sand and gravel fees. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon