First posted 02:41am (Mla time) Nov 13, 2005 Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A17 of the Nov. 13, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
RAPU-RAPU, Albay -- For more than a week now, most residents in the villages of Pagcolbon, Malobago, and Binosawan here, whose main source of livelihood is fishing, have found it hard to catch fish in their once-rich fishing area.
They claimed that the area was still evidently contaminated by cyanide from the waste spills that overflowed from the tailings pond of Lafayette Philippines Inc. when a milling pump malfunctioned on Oct. 11 and after continuous rains on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.
The fishermen also demanded payment from the Environmental Guarantee Fund (EGF), a special emergency fund that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) asked Lafayette to set up to compensate for any damage to the environment its operations would cause.
Ruden Caturno, a fisherman in Barangay Binosawan, said the waste spills had brought down their earnings.
Caturno said fish kills occurred after the waste spill.
“Even shells, octopuses and corals were destroyed Print this story Send this story Write the editor Reprint this article View other stories
by the spill,” he said.
“Right now, the only thing we know that Lafayette has done after the fish kills was to suspend its milling operation but it has not paid us fishermen here from the supposed Environmental Guarantee Fund despite our having no income for almost a week now,” Caturno said.
Lafayette refused to comment on the issue.
Tanggol Kalikasan area director Jun Narvadez said the Greenpeace International was also monitoring not only the mining operation but also the mobilization of the people who called for the mine’s permanent closure.
The setting up of the EGF, he said, must be a standard operating procedure on the part of Lafayette.
Narvadez said the fishermen must be paid at least P100,000 each for their loss of income for almost a week now, based on their daily income and damage to the marine life habitat.
Barangay chair Reynaldo Asuncion said most of his constituents in Barangay Malobago were against the continuous operation of Lafayette’s mining.
“Frankly speaking, we don’t believe anymore in what the MGB (Mines and Geoscience Bureau) as well as other agencies like the BFAR (Bureau of Fishery and Aquatic Resources) are saying. It seems they don’t see the reality that most of us here are continuously suffering for there’s no fish and if you can see, the color of our sea is now chocolate brown,” Asuncion said.
He added that the councils of the three affected barangays were united against the continuation of Lafayette’s mining operation.
Barangay Binosawan chair Efren Ebuel claimed that of the three villages, their barangay suffered most since the tailings pond that overflowed is just 50 meters away from the Binosawan Sea.
Ebuel expressed fear that since it is already the rainy season, another tailings pond could have a spill any time soon, which would eventually destroy not only the sea but also a number of rivers and creeks. Gil Francis G. Arevalo, PDI Southern Luzon Bureau
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