Young abantero: A child laborer’s tale in Balabag mines

ZAMBOANGA DEL SUR, Philippines – Just before the break of dawn, Ricky (not his real name) started his day by packing up his pick, mullet and ore bucket.

After sharing a cup of coffee with his father, he then squeezes himself into one of the over 200 tunnels in Warik-warik gold mine where he spends most of his day.

Born from a poor family, Ricky has no option but to endure the work for a meager salary of P40 per day.

At 13 years old, he is among the more than 100 child workers that toil the gold-rich hill of Balabag in Bayog town here.

He has been working underground for nearly three years now as a frontline digger (locally known as abantero) for a small-scale mining operation in the area,

Children, some of them as young as 10 years old, are part of the over 2,000 workforce of small-scale mining operations in the area.

Despite witnessing various deaths due to landslides and tunnel collapse since he started working there in 2009, Ricky never faltered to report to work every single day.

“I want to go to school, but my parents could not afford my education,” he said in the local dialect.

Playground

At his young age, the mine tunnels, some of them under their houses, serve as his playing grounds. With his familiarity, he said his life underneath the mine holes, which run as deep as 100 meters, is “normal and ordinary”.

“At first you will be frightened when the tunnel goes deeper,” he said, citing that difficulties in breathing were the first thing that he has to adjust as abantero.

Except for his basic mining tools, he said he works inside the tunnel from eight to 10 hours a day without hard hat, gloves and other protective gears.

Children laborers

These young miners in Balabag are just part of the estimated 2.4 million children, ages from nine to 17, who are “employed” across the country, according to the International Labor Organization.

In an earlier interview with the STAR, Senator Allan Peter Cayetano, chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics and Privileges, expressed concern that numbers of the reported child laborers were engaged in hazardous work like mining.

“We need to see more government agents checking on industries that hire child laborers and in communities where parents are known to force their children to seek employment,” Cayetano said.

The Senator urged government agencies to undertake nationwide campaign aimed at creating higher awareness on child labor and exploitation to protect them against those who abuse their innocence.

In a separate interview, Julieto Munding, a small-scale mining operator in Balabag denied that he, among others, employed child laborers in his operation in the area.

While there were visible children bearing loads of gold ores from mine tunnels to the ball mills, he said they were not employed but were asked by their parents to help them in the job.

“We do not employ them, they were asked by their parents to help in transporting the ores,” he said.

He said government agencies must admonish the parents for the practice instead of questioning the small-scale mining operators.

For her part, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz directed the 16 regional offices under her to transform pre-identified villages, where there is a high incidence of child labor, to be child labor-free villages.

“In this program, we emphasize the important role of community leaders, notably the village captains, in identifying, eliminating and preventing the incidence of child labor and the illegal recruitment of minors in their own communities,” Baldoz said.

A necessity

For Ricky, digging gold ores underneath the hollow and dangerous Balabag Hill is not an option but a necessity.

Aside from working as abantero, he said he has worked as laborer for couple of times already, gatherings rocks from underground mines to the surface of the tunnels.

Despite the impending danger, he said he had already “learned” to live the life-threatening situations in the area.

He recalled an incident in December 2011 when a dynamite cap exploded in the hand of a child worker while a small-scale mining operator was doing an underground blasting.

He said the explosion damaged the right eye and three fingers of the victim.

“I know the risks but I have no choice but to work to help my family,” he pointed out.

When asked of the most fearful aspect of an abantero’s life, the 13-year-old miner said: “When miners do blasting while we are underground. You will feel the shaking of the grounds, and you will have to fight against the thinking that if the tunnel collapses, you will be buried there alive.” –Jun Pasaylo, Philippine