Philex team helps rescue landslide victims

ITOGON, Benguet  , Philippines  —  A rescue team deployed by Philex Mining Corp. has been working around the clock to search for small-scale miners and their families who were buried in a landslide in Barangay Ucab in this town at the height of Typhoon Ompong.

“We felt it is our concern to assist in the plight suffered by our fellow women and men as a result of the recent typhoon,” Eulalio Austin Jr., Philex Mining Corp. president and CEO.

“Even without a request from government agencies like the Mines and Geosciences Bureau to deploy our rescue team to conduct search and rescue or search and recovery operations, we did so without hesitation, as we have done in the past, ” Austin said.

Despite the warnings issued by government agencies concerned on the devastating impact of the typhoon, villagers in the area did not leave their houses on a hillside.

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu ordered the suspension of small-scale mining activities in the Cordilleras following the landslide.

Cimatu also revoked the permits of 10 small-scale mining associations in the area and ordered the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines to enforce the suspension order.

The Philex rescue team has been recognized for its search, rescue and retrieval operations in various disasters and calamities, such as the earthquake in Baguio in 1990 and the earthquake in Bohol and Super Typhoon Yolanda, both in 2013.