PINUTAN, SAN RICARDO Yes Inday, there is gold in Barangay Pin-utan, San Ricardo, Southern Leyte. Not only in its hills and mountains but under its coastal waters as well. Otherwise what would illegal gold miners using banned home-made under water breathing equipment called “bozo-bozo” be doing there?

The off shore mining operation, which is 15 to 20 feet underwater, was the site of the 1994 landslide which killed over a hundred people there. Many of its residents believe the ore that is being harvested came from the hillside which buried barangay Pinutan in 30 feet of mud and boulders during that horrible day.

Although small time gold mining has been allowed in San Ricardo sans mining permits from either the Mines and Geosciences Bureau or the Provincial Mining Regulatory Board this was the first recorded incident of underwater gold mining operations within the town’s municipal waters.

According to Pedro Sorio Jr., the Chief of the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Management Office (PENRMO) none of these mining operations have mining permits. When we asked him why they were allowed to continue; he said it provided the small time miners with a good source of income. He added that the Regional Office of their Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) had recently conducted a study of the undersea mining activities there to confirm if they were affecting the coastal environment.
However fishermen there are convinced the miners should be arrested because they had no permit to operate and were using the “bozo-bozo breathing apparatus which was illegal. They said the miners were also destroying the reefs there which are the nurseries of marine life.

One angry fisherman told SLT the high grade ore the miners were harvesting were later pounded into sand-sized pieces by rock crushers at nearby Honasan. “The ear shattering noise of these crusher’s were enough to drive away the fishes,” he lamented and “The mercury they used to separate the gold from the crushed ore was also killing the fish in the area.”

PENRMO Chief Pedro Sorio Jr. has promised to provide SLT with a copy of the MGB study as soon as its finished. We are wondering however if the study is necessary because even a moron would know that coastal mining is disastrous to marine life and should be banned. (By ANTHONY KINGS)

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