A bizarre campaign against the poor

KUALA LUMPUR — I read the other day that a group spearheaded by Ms. Gina Lopez of the wealthy Lopez empire, will gather 10 million signatures against mining. (I don’t know whether the campaign covers the entire country or only Palawan where a broadcaster was killed. But the upshot of the campaign is to give a bad name to mining).

Why is the broadcaster’s murder being used as a campaign tool against mining? Initial findings show the broadcaster was killed not because he was against mining but because he unearthed graft among local authorities in Palawan.

It does not follow that if he was also against mining that his death should launch a 10 million signature campaign against mining. It would agitate the ignorant poor and ignite their anger. Who is to tell them that they are being used to promote vested interests. What is certain is that the campaign against mining will keep them poor. The high ground being used is environmental degradation which is laudable in itself but not when it is used to cloud the role of mining as the source of almost all that we use each day — from the house we live in to our mobile phone, television, electricity, computers, medical instruments, etc. The list is long and their use and production have made fortunes for some of the richest families of the Philippines.

*      *      *

If the biggest problem for the Philippines is to help its teeming poor, we ought to fast track the development of our resources. Agriculture or tourism will not meet those needs. That is why Filipinos are driven to seek work in other countries that incidentally have prospered, among other things through mining. Australia and Canada are just two of the countries that have developed mining as a source of wealth and where Filipinos go to find jobs and better standards of living.

Indeed some people have compared the Philippine wealth of minerals with what oil was to the Middle East. According to the Board of Investments, more than two billion dollars in investments are expected from Europe and the Middle East for mining projects as well as other industries. But mining beats all others because it is a big ticket industry that can pull the country out of poverty. The only other is the export of people that unfortunately is at such cost to their children and their families.

This is not to say that there are no abuses in mining. There are but the abuses must be singled out, sanctioned and disallowed on a case to case basis and not the entire industry as a whole. What is needed is to strengthen the rule of law. One of the suggestions to ensure that mining companies follow the rules is to require a fund in escrow for restoring pre-mining conditions.

The fault is not in the mining but in the implementation of the rules that should govern mining. Our criticisms should be directed against the government that has failed the proper implementation of an industry that could have enriched the country.

Therefore signatures should be gathered against government’s mishandling of an industry that would have made us at par or surpass other countries using our mineral wealth.

*      *      *

There are two sides to the issue of mining. One that says we should stop mining because it degrades the environment and the other that mining is the safety net for our millions of poor. Critics do not care if mining is responsible or not. Neither does it matter that indigenous people they claim to protect favor mining. Responsible mining is not only possible, it should be enforced. 

Ironically, corrupt local authority use environmental concerns as the smokescreen to extract bribes from mining companies. A case in point is in Cotabato where the Philippines for Responsible Mining in South Cotabato decried environment code bans that run counter to the Revised Mining Code of 1995. Board member and lawyer Cecile Diel was said to have described the environment code ban as illegal.

*      *      *

As for the indigenous tribes the anti-mining proponents claim to protect, they want to speak for themselves. Chieftain Gideon Salutan of the Kiblawan Municipal Tribal Council in Davao del Sur said his B’laan tribe supports the proposed $5.9-billion copper-gold project in nearby South Cotabato.

“We have a national law that allows responsible mining while at the same time this project should abide by the national law on environmental protection,” Salutan said.

At least 3,000 households of their tribe are enrolled under the health program of Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI) and 14,000 are elementary, high school, and college scholars.

*      *      *

Since we often read mostly bad things against mining here are some comments about how mining can help the poor.

From Joel Muyco who helped craft the revised Mining Law of 1995: Your article on mining is indeed what every pro-mining advocates wanted to express, like me. I have been in the field for almost half a century and I have seen and experienced both the good and the so called “bad mining practices”. Indeed our country is well endowed with mineral resources, if you consider land area (approx. 300,000 square km) and yet we were once producing much needed metal ores for the use of the industrialized countries and not only that, we rank in terms of world production then.

How fortunate that for such a small country we were able to compete then with bigger countries. Now our mining industry is already way behind countries around us, even Indonesia, Vietnam to name a few.

For example, Atlas operations in Cebu, there are almost 3,000 workers who directly or indirectly benefit when the mines operate. In northern Luzon, Philex and Lepanto mines, their earnings from jobs enabled the residents to become professionals.

Philippines is in the so called high risk areas so mining or no mining, our country will always suffer from disasters. Why not take advantage of tapping our resources to lift up the poor in those uplands. It is for these poor that we need to harness our mineral wealth properly (responsible mining) or we condemn them not only to poverty but even worse.

*      *      *

From Hill Roberts, a Filipina in Spain: This government is too slow to emulate the good things the Aussies have done to make themselves rich beyond imagining.

Somehow, the elected politicians would rather see Pinas remain in the 3rd world category, and stay on 2nd gear for the rest of this century — once again.

Although Singapore may have immense dollar reserves, Pinas is literally sitting on gold, silver, platinum, cobalt, copper, aloy, uranium, and our waters filled with untold fish reserves!! Pinas, as I keep emphasizing, is so rich, one can’t imagine why many of our people are cashless.

How sad that narrow-minded people in government, narrow-minded people in the media run by cohorts of politicians, do not look at their country in terms of collective wealth but become self-serving once elected in office.