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'I-Witness' closes 13th anniversary with 'Chromite Kids'
“CHROMITE KIDS” Dokumentaryo ni Howie Severino I-WITNESS 13TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL November 26, 2012 
Where once Jim and his brothers frolicked is now a watery brown muck. Riverside residents in Salcedo, Eastern Samar used to bathe and catch shrimp, eel, and fish in the abundant Cagaut River. Now it contains nothing but the muddy waste from the small-scale mining activities that have cratered the landscape only in the last three years. Coastal villages in Eastern Samar are being transformed by a rush for chromite, turning lush environments into wastelands. Armies of sweaty, brawny miners, including more than a few children and women, are toiling in mud to extract shiny black ore from the pockmarked earth. 
Howie Severino and his documentary team document the work of 13-year-old Jim and his teen-age siblings as they crater the land behind their home to get at the chromite and the instant cash they can trade for it. For this backbreaking livelihood, their community has lost nearly everything else it valued, nothing more precious than the river that had nourished generations. The I-Witness team also got to know 11-year-old Jonard, a wisp of a boy who could do the work of a man, as he dug and extracted chromite from slop just so he could help put his older honor-student-sister through school. When the docu team tried to get an interview with one of the local mining companies driving the chromite rush, they were confronted by goons. In the last installment of I-Witness’ 13th anniversary, Howie Severino ventures into the eastern side of the Philippines; one of the richest parts of the country in terms of minerals and natural resources, but ironically, also among the top 5 poorest provinces. Join Howie Severino as he discovers why the residents here thrive in poverty despite the fact that they live in one of the richest regions in the country. “CHROMITE KIDS” this Monday, November 26, 2012, in I-Witness.
Where once Jim and his brothers frolicked is now a watery brown muck. Riverside residents in Salcedo, Eastern Samar used to bathe and catch shrimp, eel, and fish in the abundant Cagaut River. Now it contains nothing but the muddy waste from the small-scale mining activities that have cratered the landscape only in the last three years. Coastal villages in Eastern Samar are being transformed by a rush for chromite, turning lush environments into wastelands. Armies of sweaty, brawny miners, including more than a few children and women, are toiling in mud to extract shiny black ore from the pockmarked earth. Howie Severino and his documentary team document the work of 13-year-old Jim and his teen-age siblings as they crater the land behind their home to get at the chromite and the instant cash they can trade for it. For this backbreaking livelihood, their community has lost nearly everything else it valued, nothing more precious than the river that had nourished generations. The I-Witness team also got to know 11-year-old Jonard, a wisp of a boy who could do the work of a man, as he dug and extracted chromite from slop just so he could help put his older honor-student-sister through school. When the docu team tried to get an interview with one of the local mining companies driving the chromite rush, they were confronted by goons. In the last installment of I-Witness’ 13th anniversary, Howie Severino ventures into the eastern side of the Philippines; one of the richest parts of the country in terms of minerals and natural resources, but ironically, also among the top 5 poorest provinces. Join Howie Severino as he discovers why the residents here thrive in poverty despite the fact that they live in one of the richest regions in the country. “CHROMITE KIDS” this Monday, November 26, 2012, in I-Witness. 
