COTABATO CITY — Officials of the Region XII police and two other government agencies will intensify crackdown on small-scale copper and gold mining in Tampakan, South Cotabato after two miners drowned in rampaging floodwaters that swept through their clandestine mine site in the municipality.

Local executives and police officials in South Cotabato had reported that the incident left two residents, Johnry Samling and Richard Sumali, dead. They also confirmed that Mr. Samling and Mr. Sumali were engaged in “banlas,” or sluice gold mining using only farming tools and portable motor-driven water pumps

Geologists in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Mines Geosciences Bureau (MGB) and mining engineers from Europe and Australia had placed the value of copper and gold deposits in Blaan ancestral lands in Tampakan, waiting to be mined at no less than $200 billion.

Radio reports on Wednesday in Central Mindanao cities and provinces stated that officials of the Police Regional Office-12, under Brig. Gen. Romeo J. Macapaz, and Felix S. Alicer and Efren B. Carido, directors of the DENR-12 and the MGB-12, respectively, are to cooperate in addressing the banlas operations in Tampakan.

The three officials had separately said the national government had only contracted one legitimate firm, the Sagittarius Mines Incorporated (SMI), to mine for copper and gold in Tampakan, which has not started operating since its inception some two decades ago.

Officials of the DENR-12 and MGB-12 and employees of the SMI and traditional leaders in Tampakan have long been cooperating in addressing banlas activities in the municipality even as the firm has not operated the Tampakan Copper-Gold Project yet as contracted by Malacañang.

“We in PRO-12 will support the efforts of the DENR-12 and the MGB 12 in putting an end to all forms of illegal mining activities in that municipality,” Mr. Macapaz said.

DENR-12 and MGB-12 employees had told reporters that legitimate mining firms have extensive environmental-protection thrusts in areas permitted to operate by the government. — John Felix M. Unson

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