TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Claiming that the activity helps in dredging the heavily silted Chico River and thus mitigate flooding, a farmer leader and the barangay captains of two of the barangays which are most affected by the wrath of the river welcome the transport of boulders to Cagayan and other places outside the province.
This after the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) stood pat by its resolution passed last March mandating the immediate stoppage of hauling boulders to places outside the province during its session on September 13.
Antonio Paguel, Jr. president of the Cabaruan-Sucbot Irrigators’ Associations of barangays Cabaruan, Tabuk City and Sucbot, Pinukpuk said that on the contrary, more buyers of boulders should be invited so that the dredging of the Chico River will be quicker and would cost less to the government.
Paguel and Hilary Sumbad and Antonio Bonilla, barangay captains of Laya West and Dagupan Weste, respectively, explained that the demand for boulders has solved the old local quarrying problem of what to do with boulders.
They said that in the past, because there were no takers of the boulders which the quarry operators termed as “wastes,” they were left in the riverbed after the extraction of the useful aggregates which, according to them, deflected the water towards the banks when the river swells.
Paguel alleged that the indiscriminate quarrying created and widened the islands in the river so that at the moment, their total area could now be 10 hectares in Cabaruan alone adding that these islands should now be cleared to give way to the proper flow of the river.
He also said that one other effect of irresponsible quarrying was the destruction of arable lands on both sides of the river.
The three sources said that there should be no more fear that the extraction of the boulders will have adverse effects on the banks of the river because the quarry operators are now extracting in the designated area and are hauling out to their stockyards all the materials dug up unlike before when they did the screening right where they extracted in the riverbed and left their “wastes” lying there.
They said that the change in the behavior of the quarry operators took place after the Kalinga and Tabuk City LGUs surveyed the Chico River in 2015 purposely to designate a 300 meter-wide river channel and declared that thenceforth, quarrying outside the area would be prohibited.
Paguel said that the designation of the quarry area and the instruction that they report violators have emboldened the barangay officials and farmers of Cabaruan to disallow people from quarrying outside the 300 meter-wide track.
The three said that big-time quarry operators now do their extraction in the designated area.
“They have reformed,” Paguel said in Ilocano.
Sumbad said though that the city government should now implement its plan to stake the designated quarry site so that it would be easier for the barangay to regulate quarrying in their areas.
Bonilla also said that he is against the stoppage of the hauling of the boulders because if quarrying is stopped, the middle of the river would rise and the water would destroy the ricefields again.
He said that the people of Tabuk should be thankful that there is demand for boulders in other places because quarry operators are now hauling all the materials they extract to their stockyards which they did not do before as there was no one buying boulders.
He, however, said that the authorities should ensure that the boulder traders will pay their taxes so that the locality will benefit from the activity even as he expressed doubts if this is already being done.
Meanwhile, a contractor blasted SP Resolution No. 2017-51 saying it makes no sense because the extraction of boulders do not destroy the riverbed as alleged in the resolution but only deepens the waterway.
He also scored the people lambasting the sale of boulders outside the province saying they are doing so without first inspecting the quarries and also not talking to the people who live in areas which feel the wrath of the Chico River.
“The hauling of boulders to other places is beneficial to the farmers in the sense that that they bring out the debris from the channel. But they should ensure that the proper taxes are paid so that they could help the government,” he said.
He said that if quarrying destroys the riverbed, then all quarrying activities should be stopped.
He asked if what the people calling for the stoppage of the boulder trade want is for the quarry operators to again leave the boulders in the riverbed thereby bringing to naught the initial dredging of the proposed megadike.
On the other hand, Bernard Glenn Daoas, barangay captain of Appas and a quarry operator himself, said that what should be disallowed is the activity of people who go to the river and manually pick boulders on the banks even those embedded on steep portions which serve as defense and bring the material to Cagayan in long trucks.
He said that their operation is different from that of quarry operators as the latter use equipment and do the extraction in the middle of the river.
Eduardo Ancheta, technical writer of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, said that the designation of the 300 meter wide mega channel from barangay Calanan to Cabaruan is in line with the concept that instead of interventions which go against the current of the river like dikes, people should “befriend” the river by dredging the mega channel.
Ancheta added that the idea is to dredge the designated path of the water to three meters deep.**Estanislao Albano, Jr.
