That was not to be. Little did they know that the mining firm had wangled from faraway Manila a new permit to process its three-hectare dump of low-grade ore into metal. When before, the top-grade ore was simply loaded onto ships for smelting in Japan, the highly pollutive work on what’s left would now be done right in their midst.
Now even the fishermen in the area are worried. The shift to local extraction of nickel, cobalt, zinc and iron would entail the shipment of tons of sulfuric acid from Japan. A kilometer-long causeway has been concreted in the clean blue waters of Nagoya Bay to suck the toxic cargo from barges. A hydrometallurgical processing plant is rising inland nearby, where the ore would be brought for high-pressure acid hosing to melt off the slush. Millions of tons of limestone would be blasted from the face of Mount Gotok for use as acid neutralizing agent. Not only the farmlands around the mountain would now be threatened with siltation, but the rivers, soil and seas of five barangays also would be laid open to processing waste. Sen. Edgardo Angara, after learning of the causeway and plant being built since January, shakes his head and cries that the $150-million facility is an "ecological timebomb" in Palawan, host to the country’s few remaining forests, coral reefs and clear waters.
Environment activists in the province and from abroad have long been battling the operations of Rio Tuba Mines, owned by brothers Manuel and Ronaldo Zamora of Manila politics. They say the firm has not sufficiently replanted the forests it has denuded since 1977. Leaders of the indigenous folk also have complained about being pushed out of ancestral dwellings. Farmers say the supply of fertilizer that the mining executives promised to deliver regularly comes only in trickles. Now they all will be worse off because of the processing plant.
The Palawan Council on Sustainable Development, set up by special law in 1992 to govern the use of the island’s natural resources, had given the nod for the hydrometallurgical plant. Composed of the province’s top officials and two congressmen, the Council needed the facility to employ the locals, bring commerce and infrastructures, and pay business taxes. But heeding studies by ecologists, the Council’s staff itself is now wary if the bad effects on the environment will far outweigh the economic gains. In a report, it urged the bosses to review the environmental compliance certificate issued for the plant in 2002 by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. "While industrial development may be a measure of economic growth," the staff noted, "it should not be pursued at the expense of jeopardizing the environment and public health."
DENR chief Elisea Gozun formed in June a five-man technical panel to reevaluate the facility. Five months hence, she has yet to disclose the team’s findings. Cornered by Angara in a recent hearing on the DENR budget, Gozun supposedly admitted that the panel wants to rescind the permit because of Rio Tuba Mines’s failure to meet several requirements.
Angara joined the Council’s meeting two Fridays ago to discuss the controversy. He told the members that the permit should not have been issued in the first place. "Everything about it is wrong," he fumed. There are uncalculated risks in delivery, storage and use of sulfuric acid and other toxic substances. Quarrying will further destroy forests and endanger wildlife. Mine waste will expose the villagers to disease and poison rivers with chemicals, the same way Erin Brokovich’s town in California was stricken with leukemia from industrial dirt. The senator filed a resolution to investigate how the permit was issued under such circumstances.
Rio Tuba managers and consultants say they complied with DENR rules every step of the way. Forest replanting is the core of their business at present, they insist. The mine has four siltation ponds, only one of which is half full to date. Fertilizer aid is a continuing commitment, though by no means an admission of pollution. They belie the tribespeople’s claim of dislocation, saying the latter have no proof of previous occupation of ancestral lands or of being true indigenous folk to begin with.
The Council’s staff disputes the Rio Tuba Mines officers. It avers that nine laws on mining, environment protection, forestry and land use have been broken. Foremost of this, it says, is that the people to be most affected by the mining, limestone blasting, ore processing, waste dumping, and acid unloading were not consulted or adequately informed about the effects on their health and surroundings. The barangay heads have signed complaints to the effect. They were kept in the dark, they say, and only the officials in Manila approved the facility.