by Aurelio Peña
SINCE I last covered the gold rush and landslides of Diwalwal, Compostela Valley in the late eighties for the now defunct Asiaweek magazine, the stories of the dead and dying coming out of the mining areas there have always been the same: the do-or-die determination of hundreds of small miners to find gold — or die trying.
If you’re someone who’s jobless and so desperate to feed your family and aren’t afraid to take risks digging for gold in the Compostela mountains (whose soil is often so soft it may collapse anytime) then you’re probably are one of those small-scale miners who are ready to die for gold.
True stories of cops, traders, vendors, hoodlums, soldiers, army officers, etc who made hundreds of millions from gold out of the gold-laden, landslide-prone mountains of Compostela— from Diwalwal to Pantukan— abound every where in Davao, it has become a boring cliché.
Compostela is a place where you can still find many “rags to riches” stories. Some powerful politicians and a number of Davao business tycoons started out with barely nothing in their pockets before they discovered the rich “mother lode” of gold in the bowels of Diwalwal and Pantukan in the late sixties.
A recent United Nations report also confirmed that several towns of Compostela Valley are sitting on top of a “mountain of gold” so rich that it’s valued in billions of US dollars based on today’s price of gold in the world market. In fact, one of the world’s biggest gold deposits is found right in the mountains of Compostela, according to the UN report.
That’s why the recent news of the Pantukan landslide that killed more than 30 people plus an undetermined number still missing wasn’t really surprising to us. Government mining officials had already been warning and banning miners from going back to that same mountain area after a series of earlier deadly landslides that killed many.
With the world price of gold settling around US$1650 (P75,000) an ounce , it’s a very tempting prospect for people who are either greedy or desperate to risk their lives because it looks so easy to simply dig under that mountain to find a huge fortune and completely change people’s lives….
(Comments? Email me at: tradingpost_davao@yahoo.com)
I’ve read your column on doing business with government and it was so timely i was on the way to accounting office of davao city hall to follow-up my long overdue bill for payment.
FYI, we are new entrant as bidder, being a Philgeps accredited and engage in the business of manufacturing customized shirts and other uniforms. We belong to what is called as “micro-enterprise” with meager capital.
If delays in payment is happening to big contractors and providers, I thought, how much more for us small businesses.
Bringing a copy of EDGE DAVAO, i showed it to CTO personnel and they themselves agreed and were somewhat resigned to what they are also experiencing these times- too much delay in the processing of vouchers.
When we participated the open public bidding, we presumed there is sufficient budget to back it up. to my dismay and quandary, until now, nahilis na lang ang ligid sa akong lowly fx sa cge balik2 ug cge ko kahutdan load sa cge tawag mga end-users. initially, pasalig cla dali ra au process. ngaun dili na halos manubag. nairita na guro sa ako pestering.
But what should a businesswoman do to collect her receivables except to pester and kung pwede pa unta mag mura para lang akakolekta. pero according to grape vines, kung mag cge ka ug follow-up ug pester mosamot daw ug kagahi sa pag pa irog sa papeles. Sa totoo lang, murag nakakaon ko ug tagam.
Dunno if i have to participate future biddings with these unfortunate experiences im suffering. Anyway, thanks to a person like you who in a way is able to expose the snail-pace movement of documents at Davao City Hall.
ATTY. CRISTETA A. DUMAGAN-ROLDAN
