Pinoy Weekly Mining company withdraws case vs IP leaders in Nueva Vizcaya

Posted: 14 Sep 2013 11:36 PM PDT A barricade put up by the residents in Binuangan, Dupax del Norte, Nueva Vizcaya. (Photo Contibution/Lakbay-Cagayan Valley) A mining company in Nueva Vizcaya withdrew cases they filed against indigenous people and is set to cease operations in Nueva Vizcaya. In a motion to withdraw complaint filed in Regional Trial Court Branch 37, in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, the Royalco Philippines Inc. manifested that they are withdrawing their complaints against 10 anti-mining leaders, including a parish priest. The company will also stop their mining exploration in barangays Pao and Kakiduguen in Kasibu. The mining company last June filed a temporary restraining order against the 10 indigenous leaders for refusing to lift people’s barricades and subsequently filed damages and indirect contempt against them. In a message to Pinoy Weekly, lawyer Fidel Santos, counsel of the defendants, confirmed the withdrawal of the cases filed against leaders of the protesting indigenous people. Santos said that the company, in their motion to withdraw, cited “concern over peace in the communities” and “brewing conflicts” among the Bugkalot tribes as their reasons for withdrawing both the case and its operations. But Santos said that it was the people’s assertion and vigilance that made the mining company back out. “Apparently, they refused to see the obvious. The barricades put up by the people especially the IPs (indigenous peoples), the TRO issued by the court notwithstanding, had prevented them their ingress and egress to the exploration site, until they became ‘sick and tired’ of the people’s resistance to mining and finally withdrawn from their operation,” he said. Santos said he hoped that Royalco is sincere in withdrawing its operations in the province. Nevertheless, he called on the people to continue their vigilance. “The people had undoubtedly won the battle but not the war. Thus they must be complacent because foreign mining companies are by nature, treacherous,” he said. Peoples organizations are set to hold a fact-finding mission on September 17 to 21 in three mining areas: Didipio and Runruno, where another mining company operates (Oceana Gold) and Royalco’s the drilling operations in Belance, Nueva Vizcaya. *************