Atienza chides Zambales mayor on illegal mining

Environment Secretary Lito Atienza, the only undefeated three-term mayor of Manila, yesterday admonished Mayor Luisito Marty of Sta. Cruz, Zambales, for his failure to stop the illegal extraction and shipment of tons of nickel ore in his area of jurisdiction.

“A local government unit should exercise its powers to stop all illegal activities in his area of responsibility. They need not secure any clearance from any agency in exercising their powers for it is already clearly provided for by the Local Government Code,” Atienza pointed out.

Atienza reminded Marty that it is the job of local government units to protect the environment and natural resources in their respective localities.

The environment chief was irked over Marty’s report accusing the department of inaction on his complaints about the operation of large mining companies in the country which, according to him, are illegally extracting minerals in Sta. Cruz. Marty also questioned Atienza about the obvious bias reactions of all national government agencies to large company requests for police assistance compared to local official requests.

Correcting Marty’s allegations, Atienza stressed that such reports are merely “alibis for inaction” used by mayors who do not perform their job well. Atienza added that he has yet to see Marty’s sincerity and proof of his non-involvement in illegal activities of small-scale miners such as A3 Una Corp., which was caught with a stockpile of 200,000 metric tons of illegally extracted nickel ore and earlier personally confiscated by the environment chief. Manila Standard Today