Responsibility for the Semirara tragedy goes beyond the company

IT is terribly tragic and disheartening that for the second time in a little more than two years, we find ourselves offering condolences and prayers for the families of workers killed in an accident at the Panian open-pit coal mine on Semirara Island in Antique Province.

In the early-morning hours of last Friday, July 17, a landslide at the northern edge of the mine principally owned by DMCI Holdings Inc. buried a number of workers, killing nine. It was eerily similar to another landslide in February 2013 in which ten workers were killed.