NDF Southern Mindanao Warns of More Ecological Destruction, Plunder by Foreign Mining Capitalists

Rubi Del Mundo
Spokesperson
National Democratic Front-Southern Mindanao
December 07, 2004

By legitimizing, through the Mining Act of 1995, the unbridled plunder by foreign mining capitalists of our mineral resources, the reactionary Supreme Court and the Arroyo regime are agitating the Filipino people's struggle to defend our precious lands from exploitation and degradation.

The National Democratic Front-Southern Mindanao warns of a widespread ecological destruction and large-scale displacement of peasants and Lumads in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling upholding Republic Act 7942 or the Mining Act of 1995.

The estimated 800,000 Lumads and poor peasants living in impoverished yet mineral-rich areas of Southern Mindanao will bear the brunt of even more atrocious military campaigns that will accompany large-scale mining operations.

The exploration and open-pit mining in the region shall result in massive siltation of our rivers and large-scale denudation of our forests. The operations of the Kingking gold copper concession by the Canadian-owned Echo Bay, Toronto Ventures Inc., and Benguet Mining Corp. in Pantukan, Compostela Valley, have already caused the siltation of the Kingking river, triggering landslides and mudslides during flashfloods.

Once Diwalwal and Mt. De Oro in Compostela Valley are opened to these rapacious foreign mining companies and their local partners, the periodic floodings in Davao del Norte and Davao City will become more destructive.

Contrary to the lies peddled by the Arroyo regime, allowing the monopoly bourgeoisie to plunder our mineral resources will only worsen the current economic crisis and ecological destruction in the country. This regime cannot pay the gargantuan foreign debt, nor can it solve the budget deficit or produce the 240,000 jobs it promised in the countryside out of the foreign mining investments it hope to generate. All profits will go to greedy foreign bourgeois monopolists and to corrupt bureaucrat capitalists of the present regime.

The country already experienced more than a century of profit-driven foreign mining plunder. US firms under the auspices of the US colonial government siphoned off our natural mineral resources, denuded the forests, polluted the rivers, and caused widespread soil poisoning and erosion since the start of the 20th century. In the 1960s, U.S. and Japanese firms established export-oriented mines and plantations in Southern Mindanao and other parts of the country wantonly and mindlessly.

Further liberalizing the mining industry to cater to the greed of profit-hungry mining firms from Australia, Canada and United States cannot undo and in fact will exacerbate the ravages of the environment and further deteriorate our economy.

The NDF and the armed revolutionary movement shall continue to fiercely oppose destructive large-scale mining projects especially within its areas of jurisdiction in the region. It shall continue to take decisive measures in protecting the environment and defending the people's welfare.

(Sgd.) Rubi del Mundo
Spokesperson