THE Bohol Small-scale Miners Association (BSMA), a group of quarry operators and sand/gravel extractors wanted to change the image of mining/quarry industry in the province, its president Engr. Eduardo Labunog said during the Capitol Reports held on Friday at the new Capitol.
He told media that this is one of the objectives why they organized into an association, saying that they also wanted to contribute to help mitigate and support climate change.
For this, they’re launching tree planting as a way of rehabilitating the abandoned quarry sites as part of their environmental responsibility. But they will not do it immediately after quarrying but after awhile and surrounding areas.
He said that they’re happy to be part of the province campaign in the tree planting aside from helping the barangays where their quarry sites are located, such as road repair.
Salvador Maluenda, who also represented the association as vice-president during the weekly Capitol Reports, expressed elation that under the administration of Gov. Aris Aumentado regulations on quarry operations have been fully enforced.
He said that it is but proper to do it to stop the illegal quarrying since this is not good for those who religiously follow the law. The law on quarrying must be followed, he said in vernacular.
Engr. Winston Bolo, resident manager of the Bohol Limestone Corporation (BLC) based in Garcia-Hernandez, where the limestone mining is situated, clarified that the said mining fall under large-scale which is beyond the ambit of the provincial government. He said that the company is separate entity from the Bohol Mining Services Corporation (PMSC) which processes the mined limestone ore.
The company for the last 45 years of operations since 1977 has already mined over 60 million tons of limestone minerals. And its operations is governed by the national government thru the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
It has contributed to the government coffers some P42 million in excise tax, P51 million in value-added tax and P28.8 million in local tax from 2001 to 2021, Bolo said during the Capitol Reports, wherein he was one the resource persons.
As mandated by law, the limestone mining has contributed P3 million plus, which is about 1.5% of the operation cost, for livelihood. This is aside from P3 million plus for mitigating measures in drainage for storm water, maintenance of vegetation and reforestation.
The company has already grown over 94,000 of tree seedlings planted in 186 hectares in the surroundings and will continue to do the tree planting including the monitoring in its claimed 649 hectares.
Other resource persons include Atty. Reynard Namocatcat of the Proviincila Legal Office (PLO), BMinRRO head Engr. Ana Luisa Galicinao and Donita Rose Calipes and Hilarie V. Gonzales (both of the BMnRRO (rvo)
