The Department of Environment and Natural Resources will look into the reported gold mine that is within the mangrove areas in barangay Biabas, Ubay, Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer Nestor Canda said in an interview. This came as a group of enterprising miners were being seen recently by one of the law enforcers of Bohol Environment Management Office (BEMO) digging part of the mangrove area of said barangay. The law enforcer took photos of the mine site.  According to the law enforcer, the miners used a compressor for air when they go under the watery and muddy cave-in they dug up. He said that the miners initially found some of the elusive mineral dust.

 The miners who told him that indeed they got some gold, were not yet identified, he said.  The law enforcer said that the mine is being abandoned after the discovery of their “racket” without papers from the authorities.  In a separate interview, Canda said that he would soon dispatch a group of investigators to check the gold mine at a mangrove area in Ubay.  It can be recalled that similar venture of gold mining in Anda town was reported to the media. But the said gold excavation yielded nothing, reports said.  Gold rush in the mountain ranges of barangays Zamora and Magsaysay in Talibon town is still going on, report said. It said that the miners still used the crude type of digging underground with makeshift tunnel without safety nets.  The DENR earlier said that it tried to stop the said mining but still the people tried their luck to get rich.The agency planned to make the area as people's mining venture with hope that the government regulate such diggings. (RIC V. OBEDENCIO)