ILOILO CITY -- Ioilo’s provincial government will be moderate in regulating quarry operations in the province in consideration of contractors suffering from a shortage of sand and gravel.
Several contractors have appealed before the provincial government that they already lacked quarry materials, Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor Sr. said Friday.
With this, the provincial government, through its Provincial Environment and Natural Resources (PENRO), is planning to allow selected operators to extract aggregates during Sundays, which is currently banned under Executive Order 430 signed by the governor last December.
Defensor released several orders to avoid the excessive extraction of sand and gravel.
EO 227, which the governor signed August 2017, temporarily suspended or provided a moratorium on the issuance of commercial sand and gravel; and industrial sand and gravel small-scale mining covering new areas within major river systems of the province, namely the Aganan, Jalaur, Sibalom, Suage and Ulian river systems.
Meanwhile, EO 430 regulated the extraction, removal, hauling and transportation of sand and gravel and other quarry materials in the province.
“If the construction of their projects is delayed, it will be canceled by the government,” Defensor said.
He specifically mentioned projects such as those under the Department of Agriculture’s Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) and Conditional Matching Grant to Provinces (CMGP) of the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
“If we will not give way to that, the contractors will not be able to comply with their timeline because they do not have sources of sand and gravel,” he said.
Meanwhile, the governor said they are also considering allowing mountain quarrying.
He said that it is now being studied so there would be enough supply of sand and gravel to cope with the demands of ongoing construction works in the city and province of Iloilo. (PNA)
PNA file photo
