Mining Act of 1995:
A scourge to the Filipino people

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

Even before a series of typhoons battered the eastern part of Luzon, another disaster has been devastating the country. The culprit�the Supreme Court's decision on December 1 upholding the "legality" of the Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) between the Arroyo government and Western Mining Corp., an Australian company. The WMC, which holds a 99,000-hectare mining concession in southern Mindanao, was the first company granted an FTAA after RA 7942 or the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 was enacted under the Ramos regime.

The decision is but the latest of several Supreme Court rulings nullifying whatever constitutional provisions remain protecting the national patrimony. The Arroyo regime plans to complete the process by amending the constitution in 2005, scrapping altogether Article 12 and similar provisions concerning the national patrimony and economic sovereignty.

Meanwhile, we can expect more of the same from the Supreme Court in the face of the severe financial crisis besetting the Arroyo regime. The court has candidly admitted that a major factor influencing its decision on the Mining Act was the need to boost the country's long-stagnant economy. It founded its decision on National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) statistics saying the country would benefit from the entry of up to $10 billion worth of foreign investments and the creation of 251,826 new jobs if foreigners were allowed to exploit the country's $840 billion mineral reserves. They deliberately turned a blind eye not only on the direct contradiction between the Mining Act and the puppet republic's own constitution, but moreso on the devastation that large-scale and unmitigated mining would bring on the welfare of the people and the environment.

As a result of the Supreme Court decision, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has been swamped by 30 foreign companies applying for permits to conduct exploration in various parts of the country early next year. The affected areas are mainly in Mindanao, particularly along the border of Bukidnon with the Davao provinces and in Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur. The approval of 23 mining applications in the Cordillera covering 77,000 hectares is also pending.

The people of Bukidnon and the Surigao provinces vehemently oppose mining operations in the area, saying that environmental destruction would also wreak havoc on the livelihood of peasants and national minority groups who would be driven out of their ancestral lands. Large-scale mining would pollute watersheds and aquatic sources of livelihood such as streams, rivers and seas. AGHAM, a University of the Philippines-based group of scientists has tagged mining and logging operations of big foreign firms as the causes of environmental degradation.

The most recent example of the "domino effect" destruction wrought by large-scale and unmitigated mining took place in Marinduque in 1996 when Marcopper-Placer Dome disposed of three million tons of toxic chemicals in the Boac River. The toxic waste which found its way to Calancan Bay caused the death of the river and the destruction of the livelihood not only of several thousand people who depended on it but also of the peasants whose crops were destroyed when the contaminated water overflowed and inundated their farms. Earlier, the company's siltation dam also gave way in 1993, contaminating the Mogpog River with toxic chemicals like mercury. A number of residents of the affected area have since died of mercury poisoning.

Lepanto Consolidated Mining, meanwhile, has been blamed for the environmental destruction and fish kills in the Abra River since 2003, and health disorders among people living along the banks of the river from Benguet to Ilocos Sur and Abra. The mercury that Benguet Consolidated releases into the river has also been proven to have reached Lingayen Gulf in Pangasinan after fish caught in the gulf were found to have high concentrations of mercury. The Baguio City landslides during the 1990 earthquake are also believed to have been caused by large-scale mining.

In Southern Mindanao, the National Democratic Front estimates that some 800,000 peasants and lumads will be displaced by the large-scale destruction and more brutal military campaigns that accompany large-scale mining operations.

According to NDF-SMR spokesperson Rubi del Mundo, mining explorations and open-pit mining in the region will result in the massive denudation of forests and the siltation of rivers and streams. Such damage has already been wrought on the Kingking River in Pantukan, Compostela Valley due to the operations of Echo Bay's Kingking Gold Copper Concession, Toronto Ventures, Inc. and Benguet Mining Corp. in the area. As a result, the river easily overflows during the rainy season, causing landslides and flash floods.

21 December 2004
English Edition

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