Palawan gov orders environment council to check on suspended Citinickel

• Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?nid=8&rid=950317
• Wednesday, December 28, 2016

By Keith Anthony S. Fabro [(PNA), LAP/CARF/KASF/EDS]

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, Dec. 22 (PNA) –- Governor Jose Alvarez, who chairs the multi-sectoral and inter-disciplinary body Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD), has instructed its technical staff to look into allegations that the indefinitely suspended Citinickel Mines and Development Corporation (CMDC) remains operating.

Alvarez particularly ordered PCSD Staff Executive Director Nelson Devanadera to check closely a video submitted by the Palawan NGO Network, Inc. (PNNI) which shows the CMDC still operating in the southern Palawan town of Sofronio Española despite a suspension order issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

In a regular meeting Tuesday, Alvarez told Devanadera to evaluate the video that shows CMDC trucks loaded with earth aggregates and going down to its stockpile area in the said town.

The instruction came after Alvarez gave opportunity for a PNNI representative to narrate what it supposedly found in Sofronio Española.

The governor said that if the technical staff can prove the veracity of the PNNI’s video claim, Devanadera should write CMDC to inform them of the possibility of rescinding their Strategic Environmental Plan (SEP) clearance issued by the PCSD.

The CMDC was the subject of a complaint of the PNNI, which recently accused the company of operating despite its indefinite suspension.

In a letter-complaint dated November 28, PNNI executive director Robert Chan claimed that the backhoe of CMDC was caught in photos and on video digging and extracting nickel ore directly from the mountainside “in an apparent bid to pass it off as part of their preset stockpile.

"Validation made by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Mines and Geosciences Bureau in Region IV-B (DENR-MGB 4B) on November 30, however, attested CMDC’s claim that the activity is part of the mining firm’s rehabilitation of a mined-out area.

Alvarez said that since he became the governor and assumed the chairmanship of the PCSD, he did not even issue a clearance to any mining company in Palawan.

“I want to close them, and then after closing them, I want to do rehabilitation in the areas so, they’ll turn lush again,” he said.

According to company information in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), the CMDC “is a subsidiary of Oriental Peninsula Resources Group, Inc. (ORE), “which is primarily engaged to prospect, explore, locate, acquire, hold, work, develop, lease, operate and exploit mineral lands for chromite, copper, manganese, magnesite, silver, gold and other mineral products.”

Accordingly, CMDC operates in two mining tenements in Palawan, the Pulot Mine and Toronto Mine situated in Sofronio Española and Narra towns.