3 minors, 8 others face illegal mining raps

The provincial government of South Cotabato will file illegal mining charges against 11 people, including three minors, for extracting gold using sluice mining methods in T'boli town. Sun-Star General Santos reported Monday that the miners were arrested last Wednesday during a raid in Sitio Blangas in Kematu village in T'boli Wednesday last week. Lourdes Jumilla, head secretariat of the Provincial Mining Regulatory Board (PMRB), said her office summoned them for an inquest last Friday. She said the 11 suspects, who are presently detained at the T'boli police station, would be charged for "theft of minerals" and face jailtime of up to six years and a possibly hefty fine. Jumilla said the PMRB recommended the conduct of a raid following reports that a group of small-scale miners in T'boli have been using anew the destructive sluice mining in extracting gold from the mountains of Kematu village. The PMRB and the DENR's Mines and Geosciences Bureau banned the use of sluice mining in the area two years ago due to its destructive effects on the area's mountains. One of the mountains in Sitio Blangas nearly lost half of its mass on a side due to the continued use of sluice mining method, which requires the pouring water on a mountain's surface to extract the rocks containing the gold ores. She said two of the minors who were arrested were already second offenders. Last year, the PMRB and T'boli police personnel arrested at least 14 persons who were reportedly financing the illegal sluice mining operations in the area. The Provincial Government of South Cotabato established a monitoring station in the area and requested for the deployment of police and military personnel to secure the closed mining areas. According to reports received by PMRB from concerned residents in the area, however, the sluice mining activities have persisted and miners reportedly sneaked into the mining site at night. The PMRB also found out that the mining financiers have employed minors in the sluice mining activities. - GMANews.TV