Mining firm gets court injunction vs protesters
BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya – A foreign mining firm engaged in exploration in remote villages in Kasibu town got a preliminary injunction from the regional trial court here last Wednesday, stopping anti-mining villagers from blocking the entry of its equipment.
Judge Godofredo Naui of RTC Branch 37 granted the petition of Australian firm Oxiana Philippines Inc. after local anti-mining groups failed to show any justifiable reason to stop its exploration in the Kasibu villages of Pao and Kakiduguen.
In a four-page order, Naui said there appeared to be “sufficient evidence to show that (Oxiana) has a right in esse to undertake any and all works granted under Exploration Permit II-000014,” and that the villagers’ acts violated this right.
Oxiana
Despite the issuance of a TRO, anti-mining groups still mounted the blockade.
Pao’s village head, Mariano Maddela, a full-blooded Bugkalot, is opposed to the government-sanctioned exploration project.
But tribal elders and other Bugkalots living in the project’s primary impact zone earlier had allowed the project to continue in a consultation meeting supervised by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.
But other indigenous groups claimed they were not consulted and vowed to continue opposing the project whatever the court decision was.
Oxiana is exploring the commercial viability of deposits of gold, copper and other minerals in Pao, Kakiduguen and an adjoining barangay.
Nueva Vizcaya also hosts the multibillion-peso Didipio gold–copper project, also in Kasibu town, of Oceana Gold Ltd., supervised by an Australian-New Zealand consortium.
The Didipio venture is the first large-scale mining project in
Engineer Jerrysal Mangaoang,
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