KIBUNGAN, Benguet – Itogon Mayor Victorio T. Palangdan warned barangay officials and residents of Lobo and other neighboring communities to be vigilant on the intent of Western Minolco Corporation to pursue the mine rehabilitation of its abandoned Boneng mines as this might pave the way for the possible resumption of large-scale mining operations in the municipality.
Palangdan stated that the intention of the mining company to rehabilitate its abandoned mine site in the municipality has a direct connection with the earlier decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to lift the ban on the application for Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) and open pit mining that will be detrimental in the ongoing efforts of concerned government agencies and local governments to preserve and protect the environment.
Earlier, concerned barangay officials and residents of Lobo brought to the attention of the local chief executive the intention of the mining company to rehabilitate its abandoned mine site despite having abandoned the same over the past several decades.
Mayor Palangdan stipulated it is not possible to rehabilitate in the abandoned mine site because it was the residents who rehabilitated the area aside from the natural regeneration that took place in the mined-out area.
Western Minolco abandoned its Boneng mine site in Kibungan, Benguet with a gaping hole – a grim reminder of its surface mining activity, and which remains an eyesore to this day. Also, the company’s waste dump at Manawal, Barangay Lobo, where a thriving village once stood, was never rehabilitated.
The Lobo and Boneng orebodies were developed and exploited using open pit methods by Western Minolco Corporation. The orebodies are 1.5 km apart and fed a concentrator mill located between them. The dimension of the Lobo pit when production ceased was 1,000 x 500 meters and of the Boneng pit, 300 x 300 meters. Diamond drilling activity during the final year of production in 1981 resulted in the ore reserves being increased by approximately 4 percent. It is expected that reserves can be increased with further drilling, with the added potential for the two orebodies to be contiguous.
He urged the barangay officials and residents to inquire from concerned government agencies the basis of the company to do the mine rehabilitation when they already abandoned the mine site after they extracted most of the deposits in the 2 ore bodies in the area though the destructive open-pit method.
The mayor stated that mining is detrimental to the state of the environment that is why there is a need to be vigilant on the possible resumption of mining operations in the locality so that the present generations will be able to pass on a good state of environment to the future generations.
Indigenous leaders in the municipality are pushing for the declaration of Kibungan as a no mining municipality as they are against the conduct of mining activities in the locality because of the negative impact of mining to the state of the environment for them to be able to protect and pass on to the next generations a good state of environment.