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CEBU CITY – The Cebu provincial government ordered two mining companies to stop “extracting, processing, selling and transporting dolomites” following the controversial shipment of dolomite rocks to give the rocky shores of Manila Bay a beach-like appearance of white sand.
Governor Gwendolyn Garcia on Tuesday (September 8) issued a cease and desist order (CDO) against the Dolomite Mining Corporation (DMC) and the Philippine Mining Services Corporation (PMSC).
Garcia said there should have been coordination, notification and consultation with the local government unit and the public before the dolomites were mined in the city of Alcoy, south of Cebu.
He said the provincial government of Cebu and the municipality of Alcoy “were not informed of the beautification project” in Manila Bay. No public consultation took place before mineral transport permits were issued to PMSCs to transport dolomite rocks from Cebu to Manila, it added.
The Office of Mines and Geosciences (MGB) in Central Visayas previously issued two ore transportation permits to PMSC that allow the shipment of about 7 wet metric tons of dolomites to Manila to make it look like there is a white sand beach in the bay of Manila.
García said that not only was a DENR administrative order, 2010-21 violated, but also an environmental impact study was not conducted before dolomite rocks were extracted from the mountains of the city of Alcoy, which is considered an “area environmentally critical “.
The Alcoy Mountains are the habitat of endangered siloys, or black shamas, which are only found in Cebu.
The absence of an environmental impact study, García said, violated another DENR administrative order, 2003-03, and Presidential Decree No. 1586, or the Environmental Impact Declaration System.
The damage inflicted on Cebuanos by the Manila Bay white sand project cannot be measured due to the absence of an environmental impact study, Garcia said.
“The extraction of dolomite minerals from Alcoy and the consequent damage it will cause to the land environment of the island of Cebu violate the constitutional right of Cebuanos to a balanced and healthy ecology in accordance with the rhythm and harmony of nature,” he said in his cessation. and desist from the order.
The governor tasked the Provincial Office of Environment and Natural Resources and the Provincial Office of Cebu Police to enforce the order.
Last Thursday (September 3), the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) began pouring dolomite into the ground on a 500-meter stretch of the naturally rocky coastline of Manila Bay. It was part of a rehabilitation program launched in January 2019 to save the bay from decades of pollution and urban decay.
Environment Undersecretary Benny Antiporda said the “sand” was actually made from crushed rocks of dolomite, a carbonate of calcium and magnesium, which were transported to Manila from Cebu province.
Provincial Board Member John Ismael Borgonia, Chairman of the Natural Resources and Environment Conservation Committee, said the Cebu provincial government had no idea about it and had not issued any permits to mine and transport dolomite for the project of the Manila Bay.
He first compared the act of taking dolomite from Cebu to cover Manila Bay with “being robbed” since the province received nothing in return.
In a statement issued on Saturday night (September 5), MGB regional director Loreto Alburo said that his office issued a mineral transportation permit on August 26 for the Dolomites to the Integrated Cargo Terminal of Manila.
According to Alburo, the shipment of dolomite was the supposed “white sand” that had spread along the shores of Manila Bay.
Alburo said DMC mined the dolomite in the town of Pugalo in Alcoy.
The PMSC plant in Alcoy has an existing mineral processing permit from the MGB that is in its second five-year period that would expire in 2023.
MGB’s regional office said dolomite products in Alcoy are regularly traded to local and foreign buyers and end users of dolomite in Taiwan and Japan.
Locally, Cebu Dolomites are shipped to Misamis Oriental, Pasig City, Davao City, Manila, and other cities in Cebu.
TSB
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