NEWS: New Comval’s gold rush on at Pamintaran, Maragusan

Secret gold boom in Mainit, Nabunturan?

july 13

A new gold rush is now largely ongoing at a village named Pamintaran at the highland town of Maragusan, about two-hour ride up northeast of the capital town of Nabunturan in the Compostela Valley.
John Alfred Angcog, a gold prospector who has just come from Pamintaran gold rush area said in an interview Sunday in Nabunturan, that an estimated 20,000 miners are already exploring the area since it was opened again after exploring miners were temporarily barred by authorities to enter and explore in last February.
He said that the mining site has been opened again after the Maragusan municipal government has made a plan for the area.
“Pamintaran is about 4 kilometers from Maragusan poblacion and can easily be reached by single motorcycles unlike the other gold rush sites in Comval,” he said.
He said that about 300 small-scale tunnels are already operating and competing for rich gold veins in the area, adding that in fact some known mining-associated personalities who had hit it big in Diwalwal and even in as far as influential politicians and names from Agusan and Surigao areas have been heard to be also staking for a fortune in Pamintaran’s range of mountains, which reportedly consist of about 300 hectares.
He said that he and other members of his corpo (mining group) heard that early this year the area came to be known to have rich gold deposits when a group got a yield of about 6.6 kilos of gold after they had some 220 bags of ores excavated from one of Pamintaran mountains processed by the “planta” (carbon-in-pulp cyanidation plant).
Angcog also added that there are still few cynidation plants in the Maragusan and most of the ores from Pamintaran found their way to mineral processing zone downhill at Barangay Mainit in Nabunturan.
Mainit barangay captain Dominggo Malanog, in separate interview, said that in his barangay there are thirty (30) cyanidation plants mostly owned by outsiders of his village including foreigners like Korean nationals.
“They are the ones who are benefit from it, and not us,” he added.
The mountains and rivers of Barangay Mainit and the neighboring Barangay Bukal have long been known by exploring miners to have deposits of gold since the 70, although gold strikes and hits of small miners trigerring seasonal gold rushes have largely characterized the Mainit-Bukal mining area time and again in the past.
But since the firmer grounding and use of fabricated, small-scale carbon-in-pulp cyanidation plants as a technology and the continued high price of gold in the world market have changed the gold production parameters and in fact made more feasible the small scale mining.
Village chief Malanog bared that the Mainit-Bukal area has the mining sites in Payawan, Bugac, Pagtulian, Cabinuangan, and the older Saraban, Inupuan and Noknokan areas.
He said that guerilla-type of small scale mining activities even encroached into the Log Cabin area inside the 1,775-hectare Mainit Protected Landscape (formerly classified as Mainit National Park).
But with the lively operations of cynidation plants in Mainit mineral processing zone at present have fueled speculations that there is an ongoing secret gold rush and boom in Mainit-Bukal mining complex. (Cha Monforte/Rural Urban News)

Filed under: 23086172, Barangay Bukal Nabunturan, Barangay Mainit in Nabunturan, Mainit Protected Landscape, maragusan, nabunturan, Pamintaran, Barangay Bukal Nabunturan, Barangay Mainit in Nabunturan, Mainit Protected Landscape, maragusan, nabunturan, Pamintaran

The paradox of being no-good politicos

Blogista

By Cha Monforte

Good-natured, honest observations are being heaped now on the leadership of Monkayo Mayor Manuel “Junjun” Brillantes Jr. and Maragusan Mayor Cesar Colina Sr. Friends in political circles just commented that although the two mayors are not college graduates yet they are excelling in managing the affairs of and modernizing their respective municipalities. They’re accomplishing and moving things unexpected of them. They’re both businessmen. They’re even seen as bullies and no-good politicos.

They’re unlike the traditional politicians who want to please and waive their hands to everybody, even to the carabaos in the ricefields, so that their friendly pogi image would be maintained and kept their political career ever shining in public. This type is sticky in our politics.

We have seen a plenty of them who belong to this trapo mold among incumbent mayors in Comval and Davao del Norte, and on how they reached their consecutive three terms. One of whom is Nabunturan Mayor Macario Humol, who in his last term, at this late – surprise?- wants to modernize his town via an exorbitant P90-million bond flotation for the construction of a new market building right at the heart of his town. The mayor is a do-gooder, compromise- and nod-adept centrist. He got his agricultural college degree far up from Central Mindanao University in Bukidnon.

They say he keeps rolling up his sleeves since he tasted his first term and has accomplished a lot. But aged true-blue Nabunturanons now are now questioning what he has got to accomplish in his three terms when they still see the same face of their hometown since they were still boys and girls who came running naked on the cemented Arabejo street during rainy days.

Which brings us to the great facelift of Monkayo under the two terms of current Mayor Brillantes. This mayor engaged in bank loans to construct a modern munisipyo and public market, well-paved municipal road, launch a good solid waste management program and refurbish well the old gymnasium at the town center.

He is now reportedly busy attacking the problem of not having potable water and the inadequacy of water systems in the barangays. He placed these gargantuan projects out from a bank borrowing that has fix and smaller interest rates and not from the so-called bond flotation that many don’t understand, and in Nabunturan case, puts the local government in grossly disadvantageous position, which is violative to the anti-graft law.

We heard the PNB is moving on to Mayor Brillantes to pay the balance of his old loan by letting him borrow a bigger amount reportedly to the tune of P150 million so he could further modernize his town.

As to Maragusan Mayor Colina, a first termer, he already has street-smart sounding governance battlecy, “Atsop Maragusan!” This colloquial vernacular word is a greeting of like being enthralled to something. It’s about appreciation, attraction, beauty. It expresses Colina’s personality of being like a street-smart while being a cola magnate as he has been. Colina is it! Besides constructing a new 96-stall public market which replaced the one that was gutted by a fire two years ago at a cost of only P3.4 million from his own municipal coffers (look ma, no bank borrowing, no bond float), he is reportedly now busy in paving all the streets in the poblacion. Atsop gyud bay! Somebody commented who just went down from the town which is touted as the Baguio of Davao Region.

Here lies a paradox of being no-good politicos: non- trapo mayors are modernizing their towns at cost-effective and efficient manner and blazing new, innovative trails in governance against the usual barriers of resources, while the trapo ones are sustaining if not stagnating the spatial makeup of their towns and are always drawn into the whirlpool of traditional, non-trendsetting governance.

It really counts a lot when you introduce and complete a facelift in places long known to be old and stagnant. What a wonder it brings and ushers to an expectant populace. Such breezes through our imagination and captures a snapshot of the leader’s vision. Maybe it’s because Brillantes and Colina are both businessmen? But no, Carmen Mayor Marcelino Perandos in Davao del Norte isn’t. He is only once a municipal registrar. He’s too a no-good politico. But look what a facelift he made for his flood-prone town only during the first year of his first term. He got his munisipyo, lawn and bus terminal sparkling and noticeable. Kodus to them. (For online edition, visit my blog at: http://cha4t.wordpress.com)

Filed under: brillantes, colina, maragusan, monkayo, brillantes, colina, maragusan, monkayo