Home | To bottom

Benguet SP to Philex: spare the children

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet (July 19) — The Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) of this province this week called on the Philex Mines management not to include the dependents of former mineworkers in its camp decongestion program, as the latter continues to ban the admission of these children in schools in the mine site.

Vice Gov. Crescencio Pacalso said this as he reported on some of the provincial government’s legislative accomplishments for years 2003 to 2004 in the State of the Province Address (SOPA). The SP passed Resolution No.05-196 stating that Philex’s non-acceptance of the students is improper and violates constitutional provisions.

“We call on Philex not to include the children in their decongestion program. The children should have been admitted into the schools,” Pacalso said.

Philex denied the admission of some 200 high school and elementary students. Some of them are already graduating. Due to this, some parents and grandparents were forced to enroll their children to the nearest school, in Brgy. Ampucao, Itogon town, which is some 15 kilometers (km) away from the mine site.

“It is a burden for the parents to send their children to Ampucao because that is already an additional expense in their budgets,” Pacalso said.

“We appeal to the Philex management to allow the children to enroll, at least until the time comes that they should already vacate the mine site”, said Gov. Borromeo Melchor.

Last week, several parents from Tuba and Itogon municipalities prepared to file a lawsuit versus the mining company. Philex has been operating in Itogon for 47 years already.

Moratorium

In a mining forum organized by multisectoral groups in the province last June, the SP was asked to declare a moratorium on large-scale mining, considering its various adverse impacts. Pacalso said, however, that this would only be done once consultation with ancestral landowners is carried out; adding that funding is also a crucial component.

“We are still considering the matter, and we would like to consult first with people on how they would like to manage their ancestral lands. And if they declare some areas closed to mining operations, then we will support that,” Pacalso said.

The vice governor stressed as well that land use plans must jibe with management of ancestral lands in Benguet, which is populated mostly by the Ibaloi and Kankanaey indigenous peoples.

Pacalso added that protected areas and cultural heritage programs must be closed to mining.

Regarding the 7-week old labor dispute at Mankayan, Benguet, Benguet Gov. Borromeo Melchor appealed to Lepanto management to cease from dismissing the workers in the middle of the strike. Melchor hoped that the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) decision would prevail to settle the dispute.

The Benguet SP passed two resolutions on June 27, one of which is Resolution # 05-213, requesting the Police Regional Office to exert maximum tolerance and non-violence while carrying out its functions in the picket lines. The other is Resolution # 05-216, which directed the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office to provide medical assistance to the workers’ families.

As of July 20, NORDIS sources in Mankayan reported that management has started evicting the workers from their bunkhouses. Several arrests and dispersals at the picket lines were carried out by the PNP in implementing the DOLE’s return to work and assumption of jurisdiction orders, which LEU has defied. # AT Bengwayan for NORDIS

Home | Back to top