[ Life ] My head hurts…
and my ears too
[ Life ] Many died
[ Life ] They didn't make it
[ Life ] That used to be our house
[ Life ] There are people who can barely walk because they used to dive for gold
[ Life ] It's hard for me to walk now
[ Life ] Mining gold without permission is
forbidden, but none of us have a license or permit
[ Life ] This is the nugget she found
[ Life ] It didn't bring much, but it's something
DIVING FOR GOLD
[ VO ] Panaon Island in the Philippines. home to Pinut-an barangay. The Philippines’
underwater Klondike. divers here find gold beneath the waves, just off the coast.
[ VO ] This is Severino Mojar. Just like all the
others, he came to Pinut-an to make his fortune.
[ VO ] And while doing so, Severino tells us how things work around here.
[ Severino Mojar Gold Prospector ] I thought, 'How can I make a living?'
[ Severino ] I know how to dive, so I put this skill to good use here
[ Severino ] I dive for a living
[ VO ] The first people to find gold here were the Spanish, as early as 18th century. But
within a hundred years, a landslide got in the
way. In the 20th century, Americans came, but
were swept away by a typhoon. For decades, big
corporations have kept selling the mine on,
all eventually driven out by low margins. And
once they’d all gone, the gold divers moves in.
[ Severino ] When we came, it was hard to find
gold here because the water's cold deep down
[ Severino ] It's also dark and murky, so you can't see well, like today
[ VO ] The problem with the works carried out here is
that the gold divers cripple coastal integrity. They
dig tunnels and bring sand and gravel from the bottom
to the shore and that causes landslides and floods.
[ Severino ] Working down deep in the sea gets
harder when your compressor and equipment fail
[ Severino ] There's no oxygen down there, so it's hard to breathe without it
[ Severino ] But if the compressor and equipment are working OK,
then working at that depth is easy
[ VO ] 19th century, placer mining looked much
the same. The air, was pumped by people rather
than generators and they didn’t have diving
suits. Other than that, it’s almost the same.
[ Severino ] We wash it off in trays
[ Severino ] It's kind of a mineral processing technique
[ Severino ] We separate the gold and gravel
[ Severino ] Then you do the panning,
and once you're done, you have the gold
[ Severino ] That's what we sell
[ VO ] Severino’s wife, Roselita picks through the sand on the shore to find gold.
Her method may be less productive, but it’s not as dependent on the weather.
[ Roselita Castro Severino’s Partner ] I like my work, even though it's a man's job
[ Roselita ] But there's no avoiding it, as we're poor
[ Roselita ] We struggle to sell nuggets every day
[ Roselita ] You won't sell that! It's too small
[ Roselita ] I do what I can and, what I can't, my husband does
[ Roselita ] He's always exhausted after work, his job is harder
[ Roselita ] But if he didn't work, we'd have nothing to live on
[ Roselita ] If the weather's good, unlike today, with all this wind…
we might make 500 pesos ($10) in one day
[ Roselita ] If there's strong wind, like over the past couple of days,
the sea gets murky, and diving is hard,
so we don't make a cent
[ Roselita ] That used to be our house
[ Roselita ] It's been destroyed, so now we rent one for 200 pesos ($4)
[ Roselita ] Once, when there was a typhoon out at sea,
we couldn't work for a week
[ Roselita ] Only I was earning money
[ Severino ] Here, in Pinut-an,
there are people who can barely walk because they used to dive for gold
[ Severino ] There's a man who ascended too quickly
when his oxygen ran out due to equipment failure
[ Severino ] That caused a lot of health problems
[ Severino ] Now, he can barely walk
[ VO ] Severino’s talking about “the bends” or decompression
sickness. Air contains nitrogen that the human
body can’t absorb. We all have nitrogen in our
bodies, but in a harmless dissolved state. If pressure
falls too rapidly, when coming up too quickly from
a dive, for example, the gas forms bubbles in the
blood, which some say starts to boil. A badly calculated
ascent can lead to severe paralysis or even death.
[ Marwen Mejia Gold Prospector ] I can barely walk now
I want to walk but it's hard for me
[ VO ] Though the divers have worked with gold their entire lives, they are rather poor.
It’s quite common among them to cut down on
safety expenses. Hence, a lot of fatalities.
[ Man ] Many died
[ Man ] Four people
[ Man ] They didn't make it
[ Man ] They died
[ Man ] We recovered them not far from here…
[ Man ] They'd drowned
[ Man ] We found them, pulled them out, and swam on
[ Man ] We help each other
[ Man ] We saw a man who'd got wedged between some rocks
[ Man ] He'd hit his head on the rock and died
[ Man ] He drowned, so we pulled him out
[ VO ] Adolfo Villaren is the Pinut-an Barangay captain. It’s
an administrative position. A sort of district Head. The
captain is one of buyers of the divers’ gold. The problem is,
this kind of mining by individuals is forbidden. But there are
workarounds. Commercial placer operations are permitted, so
prospecters form cartels to look like a big company in the eyes
of the law. The captain thinks it better to buy the gold
rather constantly send the police in to drive the diggers away.
[ Adolfo Villaren Aka ‘The Captain’ ] Despite the arrests, people kept coming
because they didn't have any other way to make money,
and a family must cover its daily needs
[ VO ] This classic gold extraction method uses mercury. It’s called ‘pan amalgamation’.
After taking out the stones by panning, they add mercury to sand and mix them
together. When combined, mercury and gold attract. Liquid mercury is not as dangerous
as its vapour. But it’s advisable to use
protection, of course. The Mercury-gold mixture
is called ‘amalgam’. Now, you need to pressurize the mercury and boil the
rest away. Remember the liquid terminator in
“Judgement Day”? In reality, it would have had to
constantly under constant pressure to express other particles to avoid
becoming an amalgam. Now, this part of the process
is quite hazardous, so a gas mask is essential.
[ Severino ] It was she who found it
[ Severino ] She found it by herself
[ Severino ] I was in the sea, I hadn't finished work yet
[ Correspondent ] So, 300 milligrams in four days. How much is that?
[ Severino ] We're going to sell it to the captain.
Maybe, he'll pay us 400 pesos ($8) for it
[ Severino ] This is the nugget
[ Man ] When divers find gold, you buy it
[ Man ] This is where the pricing begins
[ Man ] You buy it for 1,400 pesos ($28), and sell it in Surigao for 1,800 ($36)
[ Man ] You can make about 400 pesos ($8) off of one gram
[ Severino ] I had a wife back in Mindanao, but she didn't come here with me
[ Severino ] I'm not married to the woman I'm with now, but we've got two children
[ VO ] So, how much does the captain pay for Roselita’s find?
[ Life ] Here we go!
[ Life ] Now, you'll get paid
[ Life ] So, here's 260 milligrams
[ Life ] And how much is it?
[ Life ] 350
[ Life ] 350 pesos ($6,94)
[ Life ] I'll pay you half a million!
[ Life ] Here you are!
[ Life ] Go buy yourself some rice, along with a car!
[ Life ] Let's go
[ VO ] There. Severino and his wife are now rich.
[ Roselita ] It didn't bring much, but it's something
[ Roselita ] It's not easy to mine gold around here
[ VO ] Now they can spend the money. What can you get for 7 dollars?
[ Roselita ] 3 kilos of rice, please
[ Woman ] 3 kilos
[ Roselita ] Nescafé and sugar, please
[ Woman ] 214 ($4,24)
[ Roselita ] 214
[ Roselita ] This is all we've got left
[ Roselita ] 136 ($2,70)
[ Correspondent ] And what do you plan to spend it on?
[ Roselita ] We'll buy some medicine tomorrow, and something for the rice
[ Roselita ] Only 136 ($2,70) left out of 350 ($6,94)
[ VO ] The prospectors are imprisoned by the gold. They
just earn enough to keep themselves alive. The luckiest
might even manage to save enough for their children’s
education, so that one maybe, maybe their kids can get away.