Another mining disaster looms in Marinduque

Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (Conclusion)

Click here to read Part I

What Placer Dome president Jay Taylor failed to say was that the then Placer Dome-controlled Marcopper had more to answer in Marinduque aside from the damage wrought by the 1996 spill. From 1975 to 1991, Marcopper dumped mine tailings into Calancan Bay day and night, eventually filling it with some 200 million tons of tailings. When health workers in 1999 began testing children in surrounding villages, they found high levels of heavy metals like lead in the youngsters’ blood.

In 1993, the Maguilaguila dam also burst, inundating Mogpog town with mine waste. In April last year, 61 Mogpog residents filed a civil case for "continuing damages" to their livelihood caused by that accident.

Taylor also failed to explain why one of Canada’s biggest diversified mining companies left a bankrupt firm like Marcopper to clean up a multibillion-peso mess that it had more than a hand in creating. Not to mention the millions of pesos more Marcopper would have to spend to repair the structures noted as needing such in the Klohn Crippen report.

Marcopper has not been in operations since March 1996. In an unaudited financial statement for 2000 submitted to the House committee on ecology early this year, Marcopper reported a deficit of more than P634.7 million. Teodoro Bernardino, owner of F Holdings and director of Marcopper, himself is the first to admit to the company’s financial doldrums, saying, "I don’t even look at the numbers."

Asked how his company could afford the Marinduque cleanup, Bernardino paused, before saying, "Why don’t they try us first? It’s like asking a dump truck driver, do you have enough gasoline to make the trip to the dumpsite?... We’re presenting ourselves, we want to haul (the tailings). We are going to prove that the problem is not Marcopper’s determination to return the tailings to the Tapian pit."

He insists that the pit – and the dams singled out by the Klohn Crippen engineers – is not in need of any repair. He says that the Klohn Crippen report merely presented "possibilities." Bernardino even says that only something like "the dropping of an atomic bomb into the Tapian pit" would cause it to collapse.

He estimates that hauling the tailings back to the pit could be finished in less than three years "so long as no one tries to stop us." According to Bernardino, his company made it a point to hire local residents "since they don’t have work." He describes what is going on now as a "bayanihan thing," with the residents of Barangays Hinapulan and Binunga already managing to fill 100,000 bags, each containing 25 kilograms of tailings. The people are doing this with the simplest of tools.

Bernardino demurs from giving any details about how much this is costing Marcopper, saying only that the people would be paid "whatever is necessary to make them happy." He adds, "For us, it’s just quid pro quo. We’re saying if you want to clean it up, then okay. We didn’t go there, saying, we’ll hire you on a daily basis. It’s not like that."

Bernardino says he would rather not wait for results of a proposed comprehensive study of the health and environmental impact of mining in Marinduque before trying to haul the tailings back into the Tapian pit. The Office of the President is advancing P20 million for that study, which the United States Geological Survey will conduct. The study, which will also determine the appropriate remedies for Marinduque, is estimated to take 18 months to complete.

Comments Bernardino: "Eh di lalong hindi matatapos (The more we’ll never get anything done). You’re going to study the situation all over again? In the 18 months that they’ll take (to do the study), we could have already accomplished so much."

But Congressman Reyes says that more than the cleanup, the one thing Marcopper – and Placer Dome – should be aiming to do as soon as possible is to rehabilitate the structures identified by the Klohn Crippen report.

"This here," he says, "is a rare opportunity to save lives."