CAGAYAN de Oro City, Mayor Rolando “Klarex” Uy on Thursday told the City Local Environment and Natural Resources Office (CLENRO) to keep working hard to stop illegal mining.

He said this after a group called Task Force Kalikasan, which is made up of different government groups to keep the Iponan River safe, found an illegal mine in Tingalan, a place in Opol town, Misamis Oriental.

Engineer Armen Cuenca, in charge of CLENRO, acknowledged that they had been aware of the harmful mining practices for some time and had partnered with Task Force Kalikasan to tackle the situation.

The group, which is led by the Mines and Geo-sciences Bureau (MGB), did a raid on February 15. 

IMPACTED AREAS. Cagayan de Oro mayor Rolando “Klarex” Uy expressed his plans to rehabilitate and develop communities that have been affected by illegal mining in the Iponan River watershed area which serves as the city’s border with Opol, Misamis Oriental. The city mayor also urged both LGUs to work together towards restoring the damaged environment a week after the arrest of five Chinese nationals and 13 Filipino workers in an illegal gold mining site in Iponan River. (Photo taken by Ben Balce during press conference.)

Many groups helped in the raid, like the Philippine Army, the National Bureau of Investigation, local police, and others.

The people doing the illegal mining were taking gold, but nobody got arrested during the raid because nobody was working there at that time. 

The place where they found the mine is very close to Tuburan, a part of Cagayan de Oro.

Cuenca also said they are going to ask questions to the leaders of Tuburan to see if anyone there was part of the illegal mining. 

They found some big machines like a backhoe, a payloader, and a dump truck near the river in Tuburan. 

These machines are usually used to dig up sand and rocks. 

But Cuenca pointed out that the closest legal digging place is over a kilometer away from where they found these machines.