Home | To bottom

Peasant groups dispute LCMCo’s ‘econ contributions’

BAGUIO CITY (Nov. 5) — Mining-affected communities in Benguet and Ilocos Sur decried LCMCo’s (Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company) acclaimed economic contributions to the host community of Mankayan, Benguet, the nation, and its supposed social and environmental responsibility.

This was after Lepanto’s Project Development Manager Jake Foronda bared to the public the company’s contributions to the local and national economies in the form of taxes, foreign exchange, social and environmental projects and generation of local businesses.

Members of MAQUI-TACDG (Mankayan, Quirino, Tadian, Cervantes Danggayan a Gunglo), an alliance of communities occupying parts of the Abra River Basin and others that are affected by LCMCo’s operations and expansion plans, said that such statement from Foronda is mere lip service.

Agriculturally sustained

MACQUITACDG leaders say that Mankayan depends mainly on agriculture for livelihood. Majority of the town’s residents are farmers, they added. They also disclosed that only Brgy. Poblacion out of the 11 barangays in the town hosts small business establishments. This is contrary to Foronda’s claim that LCMCo generates around half a million pesos worth of local businesses in Mankayan.

MAQUITACDG members also criticized the P7-8 million LCMCo allocates for its environmental and social development projects, adding that such amount is trivial compared to the actual cost of social and environmental damages and dangers of corporate mining. The group asserts that the health hazards and destruction of livelihood brought about by almost seven decades of LCMCo operations are far more expensive than the amount the company mentioned.

Cordillera peasant alliance APIT TAKO (Alyansa dagiti Pesante iti Taeng Cordillera) asserts that the ill effects of LCMCo’s mining activities are not limited to Mankayan but extends downstream, affecting communities along all Abra River in Abra and Ilocos Sur, where the river converges with the China Sea.

APIT TAKO reports that in Cervantes, Ilocos Sur alone, siltation and pollution of the river and ricefields along its banks destroy about P124.6 million worth of rice annually.

Tax holiday

While the government imposes new taxes on the Filipino people to quell the fiscal crisis, it grants tax holidays to big corporations that include mining companies like LCMCo.

According to Dr. Ana Marie Leung of the Save the Abra River Movement (STARM), LCMCo was granted a four-year income tax holiday, starting April 2004, renewable for another three years. Leung claims this is why the mining industry contributes too little to the country’s economy.

In an interview Mankayan Mayor Manalo Galuten said that the municipality has not received due taxes from LCMCo. Even former Benguet Governor Raul Molintas disclosed during his administration that mining companies including LCMCo did not remit taxes due to local government units of Benguet.

LCMCo is supposed to remit 1% of its milling cost to the host community as provided for by the Local Government Code. MACQUITACDG leaders reveal that the mining company instead fulfills such requirement through its Social Development and Management Program without actually remitting to the municipal council what is due.

Bigger revenue from agriculture

APIT TAKO reveals that the said economic contributions from mining are actually very minimal compared to the contributions of the agriculture and fisheries industry. The group pointed out that the mining industry’s ill effects on the environment have adverse effect on the agricultural and fisheries industry.

Data from the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) show that in terms of export earnings, gold earns an average of P27.77 billion annually while the agriculture and fisheries industry generates P123.2 billion per year. It was also noted that more than half of the gold produce comes from small-scale mining.

Records of the Philippine Central Bank (PCB) reveal that 54% to 59% of gold remitted annually to the said bank comes from small-scale mining. Large corporate mines produce 41% to 46% the same record stated.

NCSB data also reveals that mining companies in the country employed only 115, 000 workers in 2002 while small-scale mining employed 300, 000 persons in the same year. The same data show that the agriculture and fisheries industry employed more than 11 million.

The group concluded that the number of workers presently employed in corporate mines decreased since operations are now mechanized. Besides cutting down on labor force, machines will not only hasten mining processes but will also significantly trim down the operational expenses of mining companies.

Gov’t to “revitalize” the mining industry

Despite the ill effects of mining to the environment and growing opposition of affected communities, government is bent on revitalizing the mining industry in the country. The government insists that corporate mining will provide the country with gold reserves, foreign exchange income from exports, large taxes, and employment among others. Aside from these, the mining industry is also said to stimulate Philippine commerce.

In this context, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Executive Order 270 dubbed as National Policy Agenda on Revitalizing Mining in the Philippines early this year amid nationwide protest. As a senator, Arroyo was instrumental in the passing of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995.

According to Leung, the government’s mineral action plan posted at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) web site is geared towards the “promotion of investments in the mineral industry” at the expense of the environment and national patrimony.

MAQUITACDG and APIT TAKO challenged the government and its agencies to review its economic policies and development agenda. They reiterated that corporate mining’s destructive designs would only deplete the country’s remaining mineral resources and devastate the environment while benefiting only foreign investors and their local counterparts. # Kim Quitasol for NORDIS

Home | Back to top