Arthur Baltazar, barangay chairman of Babag, said that DENR Secretary Heherson Alvarez and the past DENR secretaries should have closed the illegal mining operation in Mt. Diwalwal a long time ago when the damage to environment and casualties were still minimal. However, Alex Avila, barangay chairman of Naboc, the worst polluted barangay in the municipality, lamented Alvarez’s pronouncement to declare 8,100 hectares of forest reserves into a mineral reservation under the full control and supervision of the DENR.
Lawyers of South East Mindanao Gold Mining Corp. said that the company has valid and existing mining rights over the areas being eyed by Alvarez to be taken over by the government. They claimed that previous rulings by the DENR, the Office of the President and the Supreme Court had achieved finality and are conclusive as against the government and the whole world.
"These rulings cannot be rendered nugatory by executive fiat coming from the executive department or the department secretary through an illegal and expedient means of declaring those areas as a mineral reservation," they said.
Avila said the whole scheme is just a ploy of Alvarez to perpetrate illegal mining in the area and a sure-fire formula for graft and corruption. He said the recent violence in the gold rush area is not new.