CIA Reading Room cia-rdp83-00423r001900700001-3: GOLD AND IRON MINING By CIA Reading Room Publication date 1955-05-11. 4. Landscape shot of Marinduque Iron Mines deposits.
NOTE: This has been declassified.
CIA Photo of the Marinduque Iron Mine
Category: Mining
1937 death of a miner in Torrijos.
1937 newspaper article on Mining uptick in Marinduque
The history of mining in Marinduque goes back a long way. Here is a 1937 newspaper clipping that shows there was an increase in activity.
Lucio Villaster was a former municipal president of Mogpog before WWII..His ancestral house located at now Quezon St, Villa Mendez Mogpog though was destroyed by a typhoon years ago was built on 1937. His a great great grandfather of one the Philippines topnotch educator
Marinduque Mining as seen in 1925
Today we have a report from a Japanese Mining Engineer dated May 1925. He discusses what he located in Marinduque. I’m hoping Joven Lilles will help out here to tell us where in modern days these sites are.
Joven Lilles – Actually the first description of a remarkable iron ore deposit of magnetite is what is now the Taluntunan Puting Buhangin Mogpog iron ore body, it was developed and mined on the later years before WWII by Gold star Mining Co. of Filipino Spanish industrialist family of Jesus Cabarrus and was named as Marinduque Iron Mines Inc of which it had its port operations facility at Bacud Balanacan Mogpog where it’s ruined facility is still accessible today. Some of the mine tunnels at Taluntunan Iron Mines can still be observed. Actually before WWII my mom on her teens together with other girls used to tell us that they go to the Taluntunan Mine Site to see the first movies available in the island Our great grand parents from Malabana side have a large track of land adjacent to the mine near Patay-Sahingan creek that is why they had the privileged of access to the mines complex. Even then the father of former Mayor of Sta Cruz Willy Red used to have a store near by the mine in our land parcel as was told by my grandmother. On the outbreak of WWII, a Japanese geologist named Takahashi was a friend of the then mining company nurse, Lola Efipania “Paning” Ma.Coll Labao, a UP nurse graduate, was gifted by the Jap geologist a ” Brunton compass” for a token of friendship for he knew his life will end cause Filipino guerillas have later taken him as captive and was executed. The Brunton Compass is still belongs to one of the grandkids of Lola Paning.
