A plea for our motherland

There is really something to be said about growing up in a bubble. I’ve seen the cruelty of the world in movies, on TV, and I’ve read about it, but in my 57 years I don’t remember coming face to face with it — as I am now, with the mining industry — and among people I know.

It’s been an absolute shocker for me to talk to someone I know and to realize that there is a part of him that will think nothing of ruining lives, communities and the environment — just so his part of the world can have the minerals it needs, for the lifestyle it has become accustomed to.

It’s like, “This is reality. Accept it.”

It’s the same blasé way that some can just say “It is what it is.” It’s very difficult for me to feel the pain of the communities in the mined areas — the diminishing of their produce, their pain at the destruction of their habitat — and just say, “Oh, it is what it is.” It’s cruel. It’s shocking to me that people will not flinch at destroying the grandeur of nature. Where did this hardness come from?

How about trying to make things better? How about feeling the pain of the situation and thinking we need to find another way.

View these pictures — no, rather feel these pictures. Feel, if you can, the various plant and animal species that abound in these forests and feel the crystal crispness of these waters and be shocked when I tell you that mining is intended here.

Feel the essence of these people. This is Brooke’s Point. Mt. Mantalingahan. How do you feel if I tell you that an ECC was given to mine in this area? What is your reaction when I tell you that the DENR gave an ECC here — even before the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development gave their recommendation? What is your reaction when I tell you that this is a protected area with 33 watersheds? That’s 33 La Mesas! But with a difference: these are old-growth, primary forests. And then what is your reaction when I tell you that the PCSD rezoned 90 percent of this to allow for a mining application — from 2,400 hectares preserved down to 287? Yes, I have said these numbers many times before. Now put a picture to these numbers and tell me how you feel. Painful dismay? The ability to remain cool while not losing my fire and will to make things better is my current spiritual path.

Now tell me if you think our country or the world can survive in this way into the future if the powers that be — and heads of some corporations — think nothing of denuding these forests to get minerals. Minerals that are going to be sold overseas while the communities dependent on water and agriculture will be severely hampered. I was asked in one presentation, “But what happens to the $2 billion that a mining company has already invested in Palawan for mining?” I pondered that question on my way home from a busy day and I got really worried! Two billion dollars? That’s an awful lot of money! That means that particular company is going to get two billion dollars (and probably much more) worth of minerals from Palawan? The current mining law says that the investing company does not even have to pay taxes until they get their investment back. So maybe $2 billion and several hundred million more worth of minerals ripped out of this sacred land?! I find that very, very scary! I listened to one farmer from Brooke’s Point speak. I was deeply impressed by his erudition and how he expressed his feelings. In essence this is what he said: “Sabi nila sa amin, bakit may cell phone kami… Bakit may sasakyan kami, lahat yan galing sa pagmimina… sabi nila wag na kayong gumamit ng cell phone. Tatanggapin ko ang hamon nila pero huwag din kayong kakain ng produkto ng mga magsasaka. Hahamunin ko kayo ng isang buwan. Tingnan natin kung sino ang mamatay sa atin na dilat ang mata.” (They ask us why do we have cell phones? Why do we have cars? All of that comes from mining. They tell that I should not be using my cell phone. I will accept their challenge but they should also not eat any of the produce of the farmers. I challenge them for one month. Let us see who will die with open eyes.)

Remember Nauru, a country that allowed the rape of its land, and which once enjoyed the highest per capita income in the Pacific? Where are they now? Their country is gone — literally. Eighty percent of the country now looks like the Moon’s surface. Gone are the flowers and the birds; they can’t even plant trees because the soil has gone.

I would say the mining companies can keep their $2 billion. We don’t need $2 billion worth of havoc to our motherland. In the Republic of Nauru foreign investors stripped the country of its natural resources; they even paid the islanders. So where is Nauru now?

Who benefits from all this? Some abstract GDP number justifies this wholesale rape of the land. And tell me how you feel when I tell you this empirical number given to me by a doctor of ecology: that the denudation of one hectare of old-growth forest releases 933 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air!

Now, what if I further told you that there are national parks being mined as I write... and mercury levels that have reached contamination levels... and rice fields that are being mined by foreign companies... and 28 anti-mining activists that have been murdered in the past years?

Why is this being allowed to go on? Why?

I am not soothsaying here, not talking about a threatened, imagined future — I am talking reality here. This path is not sustainable. 

Marlo Mendoza — a dear friend, and former head of Bantay Kalikasan — once told me the reason that we have lost our forest cover is because nobody knew what was happening.

If you read this column — and then just flip to another page — then you are guilty of the very attitude that is stopping this country from going forward. We can do something about it if we bond together. We can’t have a commercial log ban — and then allow mining at the same time. We can’t push for tourism and destroy whatever is beautiful in the country.

We cannot and must not allow mining in key biodiversity areas. And politicians should stop rezoning. Just stop it. A forest is a forest is a forest. Stop redefining land. It’s not honest. At all.

We need to change the Mining Act of 1995 which allows for massive destruction of our forest reserves. It does. Palawan is a UNESCO Biosphere protected area. It is Wildlife and Game Sanctuary. Then explain why, in such a protected area, there are rampant mining activities?

We must all speak together in one loud voice and say enough is enough is enough.

Write letters, form groups, do something. At the very least, sign our petition. Download the form and get everyone in your house to sign. Then go and get everyone in your school to sign. Get everyone in your church to sign. Send it to the ABS-CBN Foundation through JRS for free. You can do this for your country. This is our future. This is our country. Let’s put some will into giving our children a better future. 

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Please join the 10-million-signature campaign to stop mining in Palawan. Visit www.no2mininginpalawan.com, download the form and get signatures! All the forms can be sent free of cost by JRS to the ABS-CBN Foundation, Mo. Ignacia cor. E. Lopez Drive, Brgy. South Triangle, Diliman, Quezon City.