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Category: Mining

DMCI knows how to get its way

Semirara coal mine
Semirara coal mine

By Ellen T. Tordesillas

Antique Gov. Rhodora Cadiao’s worst fear has come true: it didn’t take long after the July 17 accident in Semirara Coal mine that killed nine workers that the suspension was lifted.

News reports Wednesday said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has lifted its suspension order against Semirara Mining and Power Corp.’s environment compliance certificate covering the expansion of its coal mine in Antique less than a month after a landslide happened in the area that buried alive nine people.

Semirara Mining Corp. , the biggest coal miner in the Philippines and accounts for 92 percent of the total production in the country, is located in the island of Caluya in Antique, a province in Panay island in Western Visayas.

When the accident happened last July 17 and DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau in Region 6 issued an indefinite cease and desist order four days after, Cadiao said “Baka ang mangyari diyan, after two weeks, balik naman sila. Babayaran na lang nila ang mga victims kasi last time (2013 incident), binigyan nila ng P1 million each.”

Mines forest

Rehabilitated mined out area
We were in Rio Tuba last month, in the southern tip of Palawan, for an overview visit of Nickel Asia Corporation’s oldest mine.

I was with three other reporters . The purpose of the trip, as JB Baylon, Nickel Asia’s new vice-president for communications told us, was to show us “responsible mining.”

JB, who used to be with Coca-Cola Export said, the reason he took the Nickel Asia job, at the time when the industry is getting a beating from environmentalists, was “ I believe there CAN be responsible mining operations like the Rio Tuba operation, and mining should be nothing less than responsible. “

Briefing us on Nickel Asia’s operations was no less than its president, Jerry Brimo.