Signature drive vs large-scale mining in Mindanao pushed

SURIGAO CITY — A Mindanao-wide signature campaign to register the people’s "broadest opposition to large-scale mining" is among the proposed actions agreed upon during the conference of the Mindanao Convergence of Anti-Mining Advocates last April 17 to 21 here.

"We bind ourselves in our common understanding that large-scale mining is a great social and environmental plague that deserves to be exorcised from our country and from our communities," the conference statement said.

"We endeavor to create an ever-increasing synergy of people’s mobilizations to resist large-scale mining in Mindanao by contributing our various independent, inter-dependent,  and complementary anti-mining initiatives," it added.

The statement pushed for a "people’s alternative mining policy," a "Filipino-owned, regulated small-scale mining leading towards nationalization of the mining industry for genuine industrialization."

It reiterated previous calls to scrap the Mining Act of 1995 and to oppose Charter Change as a "sinister scheme of the Arroyo government to altogether delete the remaining provisions that protect the economy, our ecology, and our peoples’ civil and political liberties."

The statement also expressed its opposition to the "land grabbing of ancestral domains by mining transnational corporations" and the "ensuing ethnocide of our Lumad peoples in Mindanao."

It called for greater accountability of President Arroyo who has been pushing for mining revitalization through the Mineral Action Plan.

"We direct particular calls to the Church to be unrelenting in their opposition to large-scale mining and to concretize its pastoral care and guidance by journeying with mining-affected communities in their struggles. We likewise call on the media to faithfully report and critically interpret the destruction large scale mining wreaks," it added.

Some 180 delegates from various parts of Mindanao attended the conference convened by the Sisters’ Association in Mindanao, Foundation for Philippine Environment, Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation Inc., Philippine Misereor Partners, Alternate Forum for Research in Mindanao,  Mainit National Park Conservation Society, Zamboanga del Norte Peoples Network against Mining , and Katawhang Simbahan Alang sa Malamboong Kabuhatan.