(Governor Lilia G. Pineda – Photo grabbed from iOrbit News)
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Gov. Lilia G. Pineda has expressed her gratitude to Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu for lifting the quarrying ban in Pampanga.
“We are thankful to Secretary Cimatu for listening to our plea and for also recognizing the importance and difference of quarrying in Pampanga from the rest of the country,” Pineda said here on Monday.
Cimatu ordered the ban last September 21 after a deadly landslide near a quarrying site in Naga City, Cebu resulting in the death of at least 77 persons as of press time.
The Cebu incident was preceded by another deadly landslide which killed 91 persons in Itogon, Benguet in the wake of Typhoon Ompong.
“I went to see Secretary Cimatu to personally explain to him that we are not excavating a mountain but desilting the downstream of river channels that are choked with lahar in our province,” Pineda said.
“Pampanga is different from quarrying in other parts of the Philippines because Pampanga needs to removeor desilt the sand coming from the upstream of Mt. Pinatubo because Pampanga will be buried if we will not desilt,” she explained.
“That is why I asked him to exempt Pampanga,” she said.
“We are also for the environment and won’t do anything to harm it.”
“But these materials (silt) should be removed from our rivers,” she stressed.
“I made it clear that we are not quarrying a mountain in Pampanga,” she said.
“We have no mining industry in Pampanga.”
“I also told him that infrastructure projects of the government will be affected if the ban continues,” Pineda said.
“The Build Build Program of the Duterte administration will be affected if quarrying stops,” she said.
“Alang batu, alang balas ela mayari deng projects under the Build Build Build. (There is no gravel, there is no sand so the projects under the Build Build Build will not be completed). The crushers will stop operating,” she said.
“Ah ganun’ ba Gov,” Pineda quoted Cimatu as saying.
“So, when he realized that we have a point because the projects of the government will be sacrificed he lifted the ban.”
Pineda said on the day Secretary Cimatu ordered the ban, she immediately went to see Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Congress and stayed until about 11 p.m.
Quarrying is the only source of income of Pampanga since the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, the governor said.
Some 5,000 trucks haul gravel and sand daily and in the process desilt our river channels, she said.
“If this is not done, we will be inundated by floodwaters in the next torrential rains,” she said.
On September 27, Cimatu said the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) has given the green light for quarrying operations to resume in most areas including Pampanga.
He said the quarrying ban has been lifted in most areas that were being investigated for geohazard risks.
He added that around 90 percent of quarrying operations can continue in the Ilocos Region, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Bicol, Central Visayas, Northern Mindanao, Davao Region and Caraga.
