This mining disaster can't happen here?

Gloria Arroyo cannot demand house arrest, in lieu of jail, as a right of a past President. As everyone knows, no such right exists. What the Constitution states are her — everyone’s — right to humane treatment, due process, and speedy trial, while in jail for a non-bailable offense.

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A supposed “international backlash” from the jailing of Arroyo is farfetched. Coup d’etat, not swift justice for corrupt or abusive leaders, is what causes global disrepute. The world hailed Haiti for recovering the stolen wealth of and punishing Duvalier, Zaire for that of Sese Seko, Romania for Ceausescu’s, Chile for Pinochet’s, Iraq for Saddam’s, Serbia for Milosevic’s, Peru for Fujimori’s, Nigeria for Abacha’s, Nicaragua for Aleman Lacayo’s, and of course the Philippines for Marcos’s.

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One midday in July 1985 in Tesero, Italy, the upper of two mine tailings dams burst. Within seconds, tens of thousands of tons of slime, sand and water gushed onto the lower weir, collapsing it too. The muddy mass cascaded 90 kph till it reached the Aviso River below. Few of those hit by the wave of destruction survived. In all 268 persons were killed; three hotels, 53 homes and six industrial edifices pulverized; and eight bridges and nine other buildings cracked. Knee-high muck engulfed 4.2 square kilometers of Stava Valley.

About 180,000 cubic meters of material poured out of the dams. Additional 50,000 came from erosion, toppled buildings, and uprooted trees. Costing euro 155 million, it was one of the worst such disasters in the world, second in Italy to the Vajont mine overtopping that killed 2,000 two decades earlier. Engineering and bureaucratic negligence caused the Stava Valley catastrophe. Builders had deluded themselves in the dams’ “exceptional” stability; environment officials had ignored municipal pleas for inspections. Oddly, regulators later blamed the mudslide on terrain and bad drainage. A trial ended with the conviction, for multiple-manslaughter, of ten mining supervisors and mine district clerks.

That kind of tragedy and cover-up is what drives civic and earth groups to resist a similar tailings dam in Mindanao. At 10,000 hectares, the British-Swiss Xstrata’s mine in the provinces of South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Davao del Sur and Sarangani would be the Philippines’ and among the world’s biggest. In local partnership with Sagittarius Co., it is set to secure a permit by 2012 and operate by 2016. To be built on the highest mountaintop of Tampakan in Cotabato are twin dams like in Stava Valley. But these cover a staggering 1,350 hectares, or 700 football fields; 180 meters high, like an eight-story building. The first dam would hold 1.1 billion metric tons of toxic waste; the second, 1.6 billion MT of rock litter. The infamous Marcopper waste pond, which crumbled and poisoned Marinduque island’s rivers and seas in 1996, is a kiddie pool by contrast.

Sagittarius assures that the dams would be built to last forever, with state-of-the-art safety standards. But there’s no such thing, asserts British Clive Wicks, of the International Union to Conserve Nature. Thirty-three “world class” dams have failed worldwide, 17 in the US. Beneath the Tampakan site is a sub-fault of the Cotabato main fault line, only 20 km away and linking to the Negros and Sulu trenches. Wicks monitored 74 earthquakes in the area from Feb. 2005 to Oct. 2008, 3.5 a month on average, with 17 (23 percent) hitting Magnitude-5 or higher on the Richter.

If the dams break, local famine would ensue, columnist Bernie Lopez warns. Toxic trash would engulf six rivers and 100,000 hectares of farmlands on which depend 1.2 million people for food. The $6 million that the government will earn from the 25-year mine license would be dwarfed tenfold by dislocation in two regions. As with other businesses, miners pay only excise tax, never for the minerals actually extracted.

Cotabato forbids open-pit mining, and the tailings dams exceed the altitude limit of the environment department. Xstrata aims to dig and export 350,000 tons of copper and 360,000 tons of gold a year.

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The Quezon City metropolitan court has ordered police Supt. Franklin Moises Mabanag and four other officers arrested to face trial for arbitrary detention. Judge Janet Abergos-Samar issued the warrant after finding probable cause in the complaint of broadcaster Ted Failon, his sister-in-law Pamela Arteche-Trinchera, and four household staff.

Mabanag headed the QC police investigation when Failon’s wife Trina shot herself in a suicide attempt in April 2009. Ordered arrested too was his subordinate Supt. Gerardo Ratuita. The charge is separate from an earlier one filed with the QC regional trial court against them for not reading Pamela and the staff their rights.

Mabanag allegedly had detained Failon’s helpers for cleaning up the bloodstains in the bathroom where Trina had shot herself, and the van that took her to the hospital. They had done so because Failon’s young daughter was rushing home on news of the tragedy, but the policemen claimed they had messed up the scene of a shooting crime. Mabanag then reportedly had Pamela hauled off to the police station for disallowing them from paraffin-testing Trina as she fought for life in the hospital. Trina expired shortly after the commotion stirred up by Mabanag’s men.

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Today, National Heroes’ Day, 14 democracy fighters will be installed at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani (Quezon Avenue corner EDSA, Quezon City). Among those to be honored at the 4 p.m. rites is Marsman Alvarez, elder brother of anti-martial law activist, later senator Heherson Alvarez. Marsman was tortured and slain by soldiers during the Marcos dictatorship.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

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