TUBA—Philex Mining Corp. and its sister-company, Maynilad Water Services, Inc., recognized a team of miners and safety personnel from Padcal mine that retrieved the bodies of construction workers who died in a cofferdam in Quezon province when a flash flood swamped their worksite.
“We commend you for your bravery in risking your lives during the rescue operations,” Eulalio Austin, Jr., CEO and president of Philex Mining, told the nine-member team in simple ceremonies at the administration grounds of Padcal mine, in Brgy. Camp 3, Tuba on recently.“You have proved once more your resilience as miners.”
All the members of the award-winning Philex Rescue Team (PRT), led by Roosevelt Rosalin, manager of Padcal’s safety/loss control department, received certificates of recognition from Maynilad, a water-services provider to Metro Manila’s West Zone and some parts of Cavite, which also gave them P70,000. Another cash token of P100,000 was given by Philex Mining.
The rescuers arrived back in Padcal on August 27 after a two-week search-and-rescue effort and retrieval operations in the town of General Nakar, where the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System was building the 13-kilometer Sumag River Diversion Tunnel and other infrastructure projects.
Abel Wandagan, Sr., assistant team leader and underground safety supervisor at the safety/loss control department, said it was an emotional and dangerous operation for him and his companions because they were friends with some victims and the tunnel was almost full of water, giving them very little room for maneuver.
Wandagan revealed that two of the six workers who died were miners in Padcal, which Philex Mining has been operating since 1958. Another dead worker grew up in the Padcal mine camp, where his mother used to teach at the Saint Louis High School – Philex, in Barangay Ampucao, Itogon.
Rosalin said the team retrieved four bodies separately on Aug. 19, 20, 21 and 22 from the diversion tunnel, where the workers were swept from the cofferdam temporarily built by an MWSS contractor building the diversion tunnel in General Nakar’s Sitio Sumag, Barangay Umiray.
He identified the four fatalities as Ferdie Sanadan, Roland Sanchez, Zenith Sicat and Danny Harnois. Sanadan and Harnois were former Philex miners, while Sanchez hailed from Padcal.
Media reports, meanwhile, said last month that pilot Miguel Logronio and aircraft mechanic Jay Gregorio died when bad weather caused their helicopter to crash on August 23 in the mountainous part of Quezon province while they were on their way to fetch the PRT from Sitio Sumag.
The 600-meter Sumag River Diversion Tunnel would connect the Sumag River to the Umiray-AngatTransbasin Tunnel, in Bulacan, which leads to the Angat Dam, a concrete reservoir embankment that supplies water to Metro Manila.
The cofferdam, which was built inside the diversion tunnel to give construction workers room to work without interference of water, collapsed on August 13 after it was swamped by a deluge of water brought about by monsoon rains.
