Give Mother Earth a chance for renewal

After five months of the three consecutive typhoons last December 2004 which wrought havoc in Aurora, Quezon and Nueva Ecija killing thousands of people, displacing millions more and damaging millions worth of properties and agricultural produce.

Government’s reaction is to impose a nationwide log ban but only a few weeks later, the president approved the selective lifting of the log ban "in response to the urgent appeal of leaders of logging, construction and furniture and other wood-based industries." It seems government’s resolve to preserve the environment and push reforestation efforts is another example of failure.

The Philippine experience in mining has been a similar exercise in futility. In spite of high-profile disasters such as those of Marcopper, Maricalum and Atlas and the failure of mining industries to rehabilitate affected areas, the Arroyo administration passed the Executive Order 270-A revitalizing the mining industry.

This paves the way for the re-opening of the San Antonio copper project in Marinduque. The fact that nearly a decade after the Boac river spill in 1996 more than 800,000 cubic meters of tailings remain in the river, half of the originally spilled amount. This despite the fact Placer Dome, owner and operator of Marcopper Mining Corp. left the Philippines in disregard of government’s order to fix dams and structures whose collapse threatens another ecological disaster and loss of human lives in the province.

Nothing seems sacred to these giant logging and mining companies, not even the ancestral domina of our indigenous peoples. Thousands have been ejected from their homelands, by force even as in the case of Timuay Jose "Boy" Anoy and his Subanon brothers in Siocon, Zamboanga del Sur whose homes were bulldozed to the ground, or by underhanded tactics aimed to deceitfully demonstrate obtaining the communities’ consent. Community members from Barangay Didipio, Nueva Ecija–among them Ifugaos, Ibalois, and Kankaney tribesmen–described how they were made to sign attendance sheets during meetings, which they found later were presented as approval forms for mining. In time, residents of the barangay would be forced to vacate the land they depend on for their sustenance and survival. The Alyansa Tigil Mina reiterates its call for moratorium on large-scale mining as promoted aggressively by the Arroyo administration.