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Government Ignores Legal Issues, Pushes Diwalwal Projects

PUBLISHED ON October 31, 2008 AT 12:07 PM ·

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS and CHIT ESTELLA
Vera Files

GOVERNMENT is pushing through with plans to parcel out the controversial gold rush site in Diwalwal, Compostela Valley province to various foreign mining companies, despite the tangle of unresolved legal issues that are threatening to fuel a potentially explosive situation.

On Oct. 14, government accepted letters of intent from mining firms to develop the Upper Ulip-Paraiso portion of Diwalwal consisting of 1,600 hectares. On top of this, there is an existing Memorandum of Understanding between the government and the Chinese firm Zhongxing Technology Equipment (ZTE) to explore and mine a still undisclosed part of Diwalwal.

But the 8,100-hectare gold rush area is part of a forest reserve and contains ancestral domains and mining claims that have been in existence long before the government took over the area. Some of these claims overlap and are the subject of court cases. As a result, claimants say, the government is flouting legal processes by entering into agreements or bidding out the gold rush site.

The Diwalwal issue is in fact one of the reasons cited in a new impeachment complaint filed against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The complaint, the fourth since she assumed the presidency, accuses her of betraying public trust by signing an MOU with the controversial firm ZTE.

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