Mining a bane to the environment

In a bid to resuscitate a moribund mining industry that will help the country’s economy, President Arroyo signed last September the government’s Mineral Action Plan (MAP) which signaled what is now becoming a frenzied rush to mine all of the Philippines’ mineral resources. But MAP is clearly not about lifting this industry and what is left of it.

All MAP projects attuned with the Mining Act of 1995 are exclusively for the gargantuan profits of transnational mining companies (TNCs).

One example of what is wrong with the government’s mining revitalization program is Toronto Ventures Inc. Resource Development that is now commencing a massive and mad scramble to disembowel the Earth that drive our people to the fringes. Upon the government’s approval, the indigenous people- the Subanons of Siocon – led by Timuay (elder) Jose Anoy are now being driven away from their ancestral domain.

The neglect has not just continued but is intensifying. Barely has new Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Michael Defensor warmed his seat when he approved two new large-scale mining projects.

The DENR’s one-stop-shops for mineral applications are now busy issuing permits for mining TNCs. Even the Supreme Court ruling on the unconstitutionality of the financial or technical assistance agreement (FTAA) is disregarded in the Mines and GeoSciences Bureau’s goal to increase from two to 39 the number of FTAAs on or before 2010.

The government has earlier given permission to the full blast operation of the Australian Lafayette Mining Corp. in the fragile small island ecosystem of Rapu-Rapu in the Bicol Region and Rio Tuba nickel mining expansion in Palawan Island. Meanwhile, President Arroyo reversed the cancellation of the permit of Crew Minerals, a Canadian company, in the watershed island region of Mindoro Oriental, the long-awaited rehabilitation of the massively destroyed island of Marinduque because of the excesses and abuses of Canadian-owned Marcopper-Place Dome may be overtaken by government plans to reopen large-scale mining in that blighted province.

Meanwhile, the Kalikasan-People’s Network Environment supports the call of the Subanon people and the various sectors in Siocon for the withdrawal of Toronto Ventures and the immediate cessation of its activities in Zamboanga del Norte under a dispensation that will do away with the anti-people and promo mining TNC regime. The call of the people: Scrap the MAP and the Philippine Mining Act! TVI, out of Siocon! Respect the Indigenous People’s Rights to their Ancestral Domain!

(Antonio M. Claparols is president of the Ecological Society of the Philippines and IUCN councilor.)