nn: Mushrooming quarry operations divide Montalban residents

[Phil. News Agency]

By Malou Sayson

MONTALBAN, Rizal, Jan. 21 (PNA) -- The residents here are divided in
a dichotomy of trying to protect the environment and consequently public
health and struggling to eke out a living of whatever endowments Mother
Nature has given them.

Fortunately, the province of Rizal is blessed with an aggregate
reserve of about 366 million cubic meters, big enugh to attract several
quarry operators. In no time, quarry operators have mushroomed,
capulting the municipality of Montalban into its significant role
nowadays as the principal supplier of aggregates to Metro Manila and
nearby CALABARZON areas.

Montalban is reported to supply about 63 per cent of the total
aggregates requirements of the metropolis. in 1997, the local government
targetted a P20 million income from quarrying based on the 500 to 600
hauler-trucks going in and out of town, each paying P60 plus a toll fee
of P20 daily.

According to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources'
Mines and Geosciences Bureau (DENR-MGB), Montalban hosts most of the 22
quarry operators and 23 crushing plants in Rizal province. Their
operations are reported to have a combined capacity of 3,200 tons per
hour or an annual total of 3.5 million cubic meters at 10 hours per day
for 30 days of operation.

But since the mushrooming of quarry operations in Montalban in 1993,
particularly in Barangay San Rafael where seven big quarry operators are
based, the people have been caught in a dilemma and in a state of
divisiveness as others are clamoring for the gradual if not for the
total phase-out of quarry operations while the pro-quarry group is fully
supporting said activities for economic reasons.

In the coming May elections, the issue of quarrying will definitely
become a major political issue in the municipality of Montalban and in
the province of Rizal.

The anti-quarry group said they have been disappointed with incumbent
mayor Pedro Cuerpo for forgetting all about his promise to stop all
quarry operations in their town. Only recently, Vice Mayor Lito San Jose
stepped down from his post owing to serious indifference with Cuerpo on
the quarry issue.

San Jose had looked beyond the financial profits the town could be
raking in from quarrying and focused somehow on a more serious issue of
environmental degradation caused by the destruction of the mountains of
Montalban.

A quarry opposition leader and spokesman of the Tabac Community
development Association (TACDA), Virgilio Andrade, said they were at
peace before the quarry operators came into their barangay which now
appears to be a barren land due to the profuse dirt and dust caused by
the quarrying. Respiratory illnesses and allergies have affected most of
their children, he said.

TACDA aired apprehension over the possible impact of hacking the
Montalban mountains to produce sand and gravel for Metro Manila's
infrastructural development requirements. The residents are wary of
possible occurrence of flashfloods aside from the worsening soil erosion

which has already resulted to the heavy siltation of the Wawa River.

Victor Taniera, president of the Samahang Kabuhayan ng Wawa Original
Settlers (SKWOS), on the other hand, tried to justify the quarry
operations, saying, "ang batuhang bundok ay patuloy na ipinagbubwis
gayong wala itong pakinabang. Ang mga bato sa ilog at bundok ay
kailangan sa konstruksyon ng mga tulay, kalsada, ospital paaralan,
skyway, flyover, underpass at overpass at mga gusalilng publiko at wala
pang quarry sa buwan para pagkunan ng nasabing materiales (The rock
mountains are being paid for in the form of taxes though they don't
benefit us, yet. The rocks in the river and mountains are needed for
infrastructure development as there is no quarry yet in the moon to
provide these materials)."

But it seems the economic benefits are being outweighed by the
irreversible impact of quarrying such that non-government organizations
such as Volunteers for Earth Defense took the initative of recommending
a portion of the Montalban mountains into a protected area. The UP
Remontados, a socio-historico-cultural outdoor society based in Up
Manila, has also taken the cudgels of protecting the Montalban
mountains, part of which boasts of the historical heritage of the
Filipinos.

In March 1996, some 600 hectares of rock mountain lands of San Rafael
and Mascap had been proclaimed by President Ramos as the Pamitinan
Protected Landscape by virtue of Proclamation No. 901. To date, the
protected area covers a total land area of 608 hectares, encompassing
that part of the mountain drained by the Wawa River.

The protected area encompasses the popular "Nag-uumpugang Bato, which
Bernardo Carpio, a folklore hero, was trying to separate to liberate
himself from the Spanish oppression, and the Pamitinan Cave which served
as a refuge of the Katipuneros.

Were it not for this proclamation, the municipality of Montalban
could have already lost its historical heritage, including the Pamitinan
Cave which contemporary historians like Dr. Consolacion Alaras of the
University of the Philippines, Diliman claimed as the place where the
"First Cry of Independence" was made by the Katipuneros.

The Pamitinan Cave, despite its historical significance worth
retracing in time for the Philippine Independence Centennial
celebration, has unfortunately been desecrated by visitors and treasure
hunters who have turned the grounds upside down and trimmed like bushes
the millions of years old stalactites.

Quarrying, though an indispensable modern-day activity, leaves
irreversible impact on environment. To quarry or not to quarry is
therepore a delicate decision a local government executive has to make.

In Montalban where most of these quarry operations concentrate, the
dilemma has yet to be solved despite the claims of environment officials
that such operations only occupy .063 percent of the total 31,280-hectre
land area of the town.

Striking then a balance then between environmental protection and
economic development lies on the hands of the local/provincial
government.

The residents have already voiced out their sentiment that the only
way the problem can be solved is for the government to create
alternative livelihoods in place of quarry operations on which to date
only 1,759 residents are directly dependent. (PNA) JV/mls

PNA 01210749

------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Copyright 1998 -  Philippines News Agency -  All rights reserved**
Tel. No. (632) 920-6551 Fax No. 632) 920-3987 E-mail p...@psdn.org.ph
------------------------------------------------------------------------