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Cordillera peoples heighten fight against mining TNCs

BAGUIO CITY (Mar. 4) — Some 250 delegates to the Cordillera Mining Conference held at the La Consolacion Villa in Camp 7 here vowed to oppose the encroachment of large mining operations into their respective communities. They also demanded for the scrapping of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Mineral Action Plan (MAP). Moreover, they vowed to be vigilant in the defense of the Filipino people’s patrimony from the plunder of big mining transnational corporations (TNCs).

The delegates slammed the Supreme Court (SC) for its decision reversal on the Mining Act provision allowing the government to enter into a Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) with foreign mining companies. They also condemned government’s aggressive implementation of Executive Order 270 or the National Policy Agenda for the Revitalization of Mining in the Philippines.

The delegates vowed to enhance and strengthen traditional mining methods such as small-scale lode mining and gold-panning. They affirmed that indigenous mining methods are more environment-friendly and a sustainable livelihood source.

Small scale is sustainable

At least 19,500 individuals or 6,300 households in four Cordillera provinces depend on small scale traditional mining, while only a small number are presently employed by corporate mines. Small-scale mineral production accounts for 54% to 59% of all gold remitted to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) annually. Large-scale mining accounts for only 41% to 46%.

Joan Carling, chairperson of the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA) said that large-scale mining employed 115,000 in 2002 while those engaged in small scale mining during that year accounted for 300,000 nationwide. The total employment mining generated in 2002 is only a fraction of the number employed in the agriculture and fisheries sector that registered an employment of 11 million during the period.

Government reports show that gold accounts for only 2% of all Philippine exports. More than 50% of this export record come from small-scale gold production, Carling told the delegates of the mining summit. A BSP report showed that it bought 609 kilograms of gold from Baguio City’s black market and 4,825 kilograms of gold from its gold-buying stations in Quezon City.

Ironically, large corporate mines pay only up to P30 million in annual taxes and contribute a measly 6% to the national income, Carling pointed out. Agriculture and fisheries sector produces 30% of the national income.

Wanton environmental damage

The activity also established that massive environmental damages in the region were attributed to large-scale mining operations. Workshop reports concluded that corporate mining operations have been polluting major Cordillera rivers. The Abra River which drains into the South China Sea through the lowland provinces of Ilocos Sur and Abra was found by the Save the Abra River Movement (STARM) polluted with mine effluents from Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company (LCMCo) in Mankayan, Benguet. Similarly, Philex Mining Company has contributed to a large extent, to the siltation of the Agno River that feeds the San Roque Multi-purpose Dam in San Manuel, Pangasinan.

Large mining companies, Carling disclosed, deplete up to P375 million worth of natural resources yearly. She cited that mining companies engaged in the production of either gold or cement contribute 57% of the country’s environmental burden.

Godofredo Galos, chairperson of the Save Siocon Paradise Movement (SSPM) in Zamboanga del Norte presented in the summit account on how the Subanon tribe was displaced by the mining operations of Toronto Ventures Inc. (TVI), a Canadian mining firm. Eighty Subanon households were displaced in Mt. Canatuan in Tabayo, Siocon. The said mountain is a sacred place for the Subanon.

Expansion

Due to the recent twist of events in the controversial constitutionality question in the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, the government now encourages foreign corporations to venture into mining.

In the Cordillera, LCMCo and Philexare now venturing into partnership agreements with foreign corporations Ivanhoe of the USA and Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa, respectively.

While there are no approved applications for financial and technical assistance (AFTAs) in the region, applications received by the regional Mines and Geo-sciences Bureau have doubled from 5 to 10 applications since January 31, this year. Nationwide, 30 foreign corporations are expected to start operations following the most recent SC ruling. Of the 23 priority mining sites in the MAP, eight are found in the Cordillera.

Bayan Muna Partylist Rep. Joel Virador in his keynote address told the delegates that “the magnitude of mining activities in the country and its proven and prospective social and environmental costs already elevates the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 beyond a mere parochial apprehension.”

Responding to the people’s clamor for an alternative mining policy, Bayan Muna has initiated a congressional bill calling for an alternative mining act. A related bill on the repeal of the 1995 mining code. An alliance of legislators for a pro-people mining policy was also launched in the House of Representatives.

CPDF calls for fetad

Meanwhile, the Cordillera Peoples’ Democratic Front (CPDF) called on the Cordillera peoples to wage fetad, the people’s tradition of war mobilization against “destructive foreign mining firms in the region and for the defense of the ancestral homeland and life.

In a statement, CPDF Spokesperson Simon “Ka Filiw” Naogsan said that “the Cordillera peoples will never pay the price of aggression disguised as development”. Naogsan criticized LCMCo for the environmental, social and economic damages it has to 100,000 people living along the Abra River in 19 towns in four provinces.

The CPDF condemned the SC for its anti-people decision in reversing its earlier decision on FTAAs and government’s EO 270, adding that “Gloria Arroyo laid bare the national patrimony for the rape of foreigners when she signed EO 270”.

Earlier this year, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) released a statement calling for a people’s war against large-scale mining and its use of militarization to enforce its operations. # Lyn V. Ramo for NORDIS

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