Envi group blames mining, logging for massive devastation of ‘Pablo’

An environmental group has blamed large-scale mining and logging operations to the widespread destruction and deaths wrought by Typhoon Pablo in Compostela Valley (ComVal) and Davao Oriental.
As of 5 a.m. Sunday, 540 persons were reported dead, 1,088 injured and 827 still missing, majority from Region XI, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said.
“The heartbreaking reports of deaths and destruction in New Bataan, Compostela Valley and several Davao Oriental towns and elsewhere show how Mindanao’s environment has reached its maximum limit,” Sr. Stella Matutina, OSB, Panalipdan Mindanao secretary-general, said in a statement.
The group said President Benigno Aquino III’s visit last Friday to disaster-stricken areas “should compel him to stop large-scale mining and other extractive industries that caused the tragedy.”
Aquino and eight Cabinet secretaries made a short visit to areas affected by Pablo in Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley on board six choppers.
Matutina said her group “hopes Aquino’s trip is not just for mere photo ops or top-level meetings but rather let him get to see the picture of the devastation so he can make a decisive move to stop mining policies he is pushing such as Executive Order 79.”
She cited a report made by Panalipdan Southern Mindanao that both provinces are swamped with many large-scale mining and logging companies, with Davao Oriental accounting for 31 mining tenements, application and operations while Compostela Valley has 43.
Matutina added that these activities involved cutting down trees, destroying farms, rivers and bio-diversity areas that surely contributed to the massive floods in the area.
“Already, there have been many landslide incidents in the past which were triggered by these operations but the government hasn’t done anything to stop them,” she stressed.
In a meeting with Cabinet members after the visit at the Davao International Airport here, Aquino said: “I want concrete basis of what happened.”
The President ordered the departments of the Interior and Local Government, Justice and Environment and Natural Resources to investigate the mishaps of two evacuation centers in Barangay Andap, New Bataan in ComVal and Cateel in Davao Oriental. [Lorie Ann A. Cascaro/MindaNews]