About 42,000 people live on and around the mountain, according to the village census, but residents say the population swells and the honeycomb of tunnels get busier when the price of gold rises.
The site is just 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of the major trading city of Davao, but it can be reached only through muddy roads and it has earned a reputation as a lawless “Wild West” site.
The government’s small-scale mining provisions were originally intended to give poor, mainly rural people a chance to earn a little money, according to the head of the government’s Mines and Geosciences Bureau, Leo Jasareno.
But it has been widely exploited and most of the small-scale miners today, including those in Mount Diwata, violate the conditions for small-scale mining by using explosives and poisonous chemicals such as mercury, Jasareno said.
http://www.arabnews.com/offbeat/philippine-miners-look-past-reforms-gold-rush-site
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