ZAMBOANGA CITY: Provincial authorities on Thursday said that financiers of illegal mining activities in Zamboanga del Sur’s Bayog town must be held accountable for destruction of environment, violations of human rights and for failing to pay revenues derived from decades of gold mining operations.

An inter-agency task force is implementing the cease and desist order issued by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) against all illegal mining operators in Balabag Hill.

The task force has disabled illegal mining equipment that includes hundreds of rod mills, carbon-in-pulp plants, and power generating sets.

“Big time illegal miners should be held accountable for destroying Balabag’s environment, for violating peoples’ rights, and for stealing government coffers by operating illegally for decades,” Gov. Antonio Cerilles said.

“They had been lording over Balabag for years, denying government millions in taxes, enriching themselves in the process, and depriving their laborers of their right to government-mandated salaries and benefits. Now my question is who will pay the damage that has been done to Balabag especially the contaminated bodies of waters that sustain our agriculture and fishing industry?”

He said that it is just and right that the illegal mining operators should fix what they have destroyed. “I think the cost of the rehabilitation should neither come from the government nor from anybody else. It should be from them,” Cerilles said.

MGB said that about 60 percent of the illegal mining plants in Balabag had been disabled without resistance from workers, who were reportedly abandoned by their operators during the government crackdown, which started this week.

A few small-time illegal operators volunteered to dismantle their own mining implements.

The government order, issued by then MGB regional director Johan Albert Jacildo in April, was not immediately implemented because the general directive was not specific and illegal miners even questioned the cease and desist order.

But when Jacildo took a leave-of-absence, the officer-in-charge of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, Raul Calumpang, reviewed the cease and desist order and issued a specific order that would put a stop to all illegal mining operations in Balabag.

Anthony Padayhag, executive assistant to Cerilles, said that the implementation of the cease and desist order required decisive political will. “It is now obvious who are to be issued with the cease and desist order and I am giving credit to MGB Regional Director Raul Calumpang for his will to issue a very specific order targeting who should be stopped in Balabag.”

He said that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is now facilitating the filing of criminal charges against those involved in illegal mining activities.

“The governor is really concerned with the environment. He wants Balabag’s waterways to be cleaned-up immediately because these have been polluted with toxic chemicals. The soil and water ecosystem must be inspected while reforestation should takes place to replenish the logged-out forests of Balabag hills,” Padayhag said.

Mining firm TVI Resource Development Inc. (Tvird) praised authorities for stopping the rampant illegal mining operations in Balabag, where it as a Mineral Production Sharing Agreement. The MPSA agreement is between the Tvird and the Philippine government wherein the firm is granted exclusive right to conduct mining operations within Balabag.

Lawyer Eugene Mateo, Tvird president, lauded the provincial police force and the NBI for the peaceful and swift implementation of the “cease and desist” order on illegal mining activities in Balabag Hill, where the company is operating.