Dizon: Find out root cause of Kennon Road landslides

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — Old American-era mines and a designated small-scale mining area along Kennon Road are being reviewed for their possible contribution to the weakening of mountain slopes and recurring landslides, Public Works Secretary Vivencio “Vince” Dizon said on Friday.

Dizon directed government engineers and geologists to determine whether past and current mining activities have contributed to the instability of slopes surrounding the 34-kilometer road, a major route to Baguio City.

He said the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) would focus on addressing the root causes of landslides instead of repeatedly repairing mountain roads damaged by storms.

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“We’ve made mistakes and we’ve learned the lessons (sufficiently to make proper upland highways),” Dizon said during a Regional Development Council meeting on the estimated P3 billion in damage caused by weeks of rain across the Cordillera.

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DPWH Undersecretary Lara Marisse Esquibil said road rehabilitation would now follow the Manual on Road Slope Countermeasures, developed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency in 2025.

The manual recommends removing unstable surface soil from eroded slopes to prevent further landslides.

“One of the operating assumptions in mountain road engineering is that once a rupture occurs on these slopes, it is bound to erode eventually,” Dizon said.

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Assistant Secretary Antonio Tabora Jr., presidential adviser on Cordillera affairs and a mining engineer, said small-scale mining could be partly responsible for Kennon Road’s vulnerability.

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Among the legacy mines along the road are Black Mountain, a copper and gold mine near Camp 6 that operated until the early 1980s and the Thanksgiving Mine at Camp 4, which closed in 1987.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau said both remain under strict monitoring because their underground facilities were not decommissioned under modern mining standards.

Collapse risk

A government mining engineer also confirmed that a Minahang Bayan had been approved along Kennon Road, although the contract allowing a small-scale mining association to operate there had yet to be finalized.

Dizon warned that mining tunnels beneath Kennon Road could pose a collapse risk.

“We have to shut these things down,” he said.

He identified the extension of Kennon Road’s existing rockshed as the “ultimate solution” for protecting motorists from falling rocks and debris.

The current rockshed is 152 meters long, shorter than the originally designed 248 meters. Budget cuts reduced its allocation to P274 million from the P500 million originally needed.

Typhoon Emong (international name: Co-may) damaged a section of the road beneath the rockshed last year after massive boulders slid down the slope.

DPWH Cordillera Director Editha Babaran said repairs are underway, with the rockshed extension scheduled for 2027 using P121 million.

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Other vulnerable mountain roads, including portions of the Gov. Bado Dangwa National Road in Tublay and the 39-kilometer Naguilian Road near Sablan, are also being reassessed following recent erosion and landslides. /cb