MINDANAO DAILY
THE NATION’S ADVOCATE FOR TRUTH, JUSTICE AND PROGRESS Volume XIIl, No. 154
www.mindanaodailynews.com
Saturday, May 20, 2023
P15.00
illegal mining continues to destroy Iponan River
By FROILAN GALLARDO
C
AGAYAN DE ORO (MindaNews / 18 May) – Illegal mining continues to destroy Iponan River despite the issuance on Writ of Kalikasan issued in 2013 that mandated various agencies to protect the river. Director Felizardo Gacad Jr.,, head of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Mines and Geo-sciences Bureau (MGB) in Region 10 (Northern Mindanao), said they are “evaluating the damage to the river system because we believe it is much bigger than we earlier thought,” Gacad said in a press conference last Tuesday. A joint operation by the DENR personnel, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents and Army elite Special Forces arrested five Chinese nationals and
Illegal miners set up camp along Iponan River in Cagayan de Oro City.. MindaNews file photo by FROILAN GALLARDO Gacad said the wasteland of the disturbed area on 13 Filipino laborers in Ba- raising the specter of deadly rangay Pigsag-an, Cagayan contamination along Iponan of 10.3 hectares borders Google earth satellite imRiver. Mercury is considered barangays Cauyonan and agery,” Gacad said. de Oro dawn of May 13. Engr. Armen Cuenca, The raiders found a fatal to humans especially Nangcaon in Opol town, chief of Cagayan de Oro bottle of mercury among if they are exposed to the Misamis Oriental. “We based our estimates Local Environment and the tents used by the miners, toxic chemical.
Natural Resources Office (CLENRO) said their office monitored at least ten excavators mining for gold along the Iponan River in Opol town. Cuenca said their office furnished the DENR-MGB regional office of their April 2023 report of the illegal gold mining operations along Iponan River. “We think there are at least ten illegal mining operations in the river but we cannot arrest them because it is in Opol area,” Cuenca said. The CLENRO is one of the ten government agencies ordered by the Court of Appeals in 2013 to protect Iponan River, which was environmentally threatened by illegal mining operations. The Court of Appeals issued the Writ of Kalikasan and a Writ of Continuing Mandamus in 2013 following an appeal by SULOG, an environmental coalition, See MINING, page 11
No lead yet Alsons Power adds more trees to 2 Million South Cotabato wants to in rape-slay planted by the Group in Sarangani Province take control of electric co-op By BONG S. SARMIENTO P16 per kWh charged by of architect the electric cooperative to KORONADAL CITY (Min- consumers. daNews / 17 May) – The proHe said that if the system engineer vincial government of South loss “can be corrected,” the By ANTONIO L. COLINA IV
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 18 May) – There is no lead yet on the suspects behind the rape-slay of Vlanche Marie L. Bragas, a 28-year-old architect and engineer, whose body was found around 8 a.m. on Wednesday in a banana plantation in Calinan just hours after she went missing, a police official said. Police major Catherine dela Rey, DCPO spokesperson, told MindaNews on Tuesday that the result of the autopsy examination on the cadaver of the victim showed that the cause of death was asphyxia by manual strangulation. She said there was also finding of “recent genital trauma,” confirming that the victim was raped. Dela Rey added that the victim’s body was covered by dried banana leaves when found in the plantation owned by Subasta Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries See RAPE, page 11
Two Sarangani Province-based subsidiaries of the Alsons Power Group recently planted 500 more trees to add to the over 2 million trees that the group has planted in the province over the years. The Alsons Power subsidiaries that spearheaded the planting of the additional 500 seedlings are: Sarangani Energy Corporation (SEC) which owns and operates the 210 mega-watt (MW )baseload thermal power plant in the municipality of Maasim, and Siguil Hydro Power Corporation (SHPC) which is develop-
ing a 14.5 MW run- of- river hydroelectric power plant currently under construction at the Siguil River basin and set to begin operating before the end of 2023. “Protecting our watersheds by providing forest cover is a concrete manifestation of our brand promise to Power with Care,” said Alsons Power Vice President for Corporate Affairs Ruben G. Tungpalan. The planting activity was held at the SEC power plant’s Community Watershed Protection Project site in Sitio Datal Basak in celebration of
the 7th anniversary of SEC. The SEC plant began operating in 2016 and played a pivotal role in ending the power shortage in Mindanao. SEC and SHPC were joined by partners from the community, the Provincial Government and the LGU. Alsons Power is Mindanao’s first private sector power generator. The group currently operates four power facilities with a total generating capacity of 468 MW serving over eight million people in 14 cities and 11 provinces in the country’s second largest island.
Cotabato has expressed interest to take control of an electric cooperative here “to improve its services as well as lower the cost of electricity that’s burdensome to consumers.” South Cotabato Gov. Reynaldo Tamayo, Jr. asked the management of the South Cotabato Electric Cooperative – I (Socoteco-I) to let the provincial government supervise management control of the distribution utility. “There’s still a lot of wastage (system loss) that makes the price of electricity prohibitive to consumers,” Tamayo said in the vernacular on Monday’s “Governor Meets the Press.” “If they can’t lower the cost, they should give up the management to the provincial government.” With the provincial government taking control of Socoteco-I, Tamayo vowed to lower in the next few months to P10 per kilowatt hour (kWh) the present
cooperative, if supervision will be under the provincial government, can earn an “income of between P40 to 60 million a month. The system loss charge was pegged at 1.4069 in March for residential consumers. Tamayo also criticized the management of Socoteco – I, which is headed by general manager Raffee Edsel Epistola, for the intermittent brownouts suffered by the electric consumers in the past several months. Epistola could not be contacted for comments. The governor noted that the high cost of electricity is hampering the entry of investors in the second district of South Cotabato, which forms the bulk of the cooperative’s service area. South Cotabato’s second district comprises this city and the towns of Tantangan, Banga, Norala, Surallah, Sto. Nino, Lake Sebu and T’boli. See CONTROL, page 11