No More!

10 years after Marcopper disaster, Marinduque villagers still die

Ten years after the first of Marcopper disasters engulfed Marinduque, residents continue to demand justice and rehabilitation as well as rally against government plans to revive mining.

BY ELY MANALANSAN

Bulatlat.com

Dec. 6, 1993 is still fresh in the memory of residents of Mogpog, Marinduque, an island province 170 kms south of Manila.

Ten years after, the residents still shudder remembering how all of the town’s 26 barangays were literally submerged in thick, poisoned mud that came rushing from Marcopper’s broken Maguila-guila siltation dam.

“Lumubog sa putik ang halos buong bayan ng Mogpog, nasira ang kabuhayan, mga pananim, namatay ang mga hayop, bumiktima sa ilang daang tao sa Mogpog at sumira sa kalusugan at kinabukasan ng mga Mogpogueños,” recalls a statement signed by almost the whole town’s residents in a signature campaign initiated by the Marinduque Council for Environmental Concerns (MACEC).

In a rally in Mogpog, Marinduque commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Mogpog disaster, residents said that justice is still not served to them. Speakers said the people continue to feel the harsh effects of the disaster in their ruined environment and livelihood, and that hundreds of Mogpog’s youth continue to die or are dying because of diseases caused by Marcopper’s and Placer Dome’s irresponsibility.

According to the Marinduqueños for the Interest of the Nation and Environment (MINE), Roden Reynoso and Ma. Cristina Limbo were among the youths severely affected by the disaster. Reynoso died recently from a lingering illness while Limbo is in critical condition, fighting a disease linked to the toxic mine tailings that has since hardened and became part of Mogpog’s environment.

The Mogpog incident was actually the first in a series of mining-related disasters that hit Marinduque, all brought about by a single company – Marcopper, which is also owned by the Canadian mining firm, PlacerDome. The worst among these was the 1996 Boac river spill where up to four million tons of metal-enriched and acid-generating tailings seeped into the river from a damaged drainage tunnel of an old mine tailings pit and brought untold sufferings to the people of the province.

The Maguila-guila dam, built in 1991 by Marcopper from the headwaters of the Mogpog River to keep silt from a waste dump for the mine out of the river, has been opposed from the start by the residents who feared its effects on the river water which they used for household and farm needs.

In 1993, the dam burst, flooding downstream villages and the town of Mogpog so severely that houses were swept away, carabaos (water bufallos) and other livestock killed and crops destroyed, reported a publication of the Project Underground and Mining Watch Canada, a Canadian NGO.   

But prior to the disasters of 1993 and 1996, the Canadian NGO’s research also showed that for 16 years from 1975 to 1991, Marcopper/PlacerDome dumped 200 million tons of mine waste or tailings directly into Marinduque’s Calancan Bay, destroying corals and seagrasses with 80 sq kms of tailings in the sea. This impacted severely on 12 fishing villages around the bay, affecting food security in the province for more than 25 years, the research also stated.

The mining disasters in Marinduque, the research pointed out, also gained global attention after the United Nations put pressure on PlacerDome to indemnify the victims and rehabilitate Marinduque, especially Boac river.

Justice for Mogpogueños

Justice has become a community-wide concern for residents of Mogpog, says Beth Manggol of MACEC. She cites results of the signature campaign they initiated last Nov. 19 where most of the town’s residents vowed to pursue their crusade to seek justice from Marcopper and Placer Dome for the disaster 10 years earlier.

In a Letter to the Editor published by newspaper Today (Dec. 4, 2003), Manggol bewailed the fact that until today no Mogpog resident has received compensation for the 1993 disaster. She criticized Placer’s insistence to compensate only victims of the 1996 tailings spill and for the year 1997 only. Moreover, she rejected and called “ridiculous” Placer’s insistence to make the people sign a “quit claim” where upon receiving compensation, the people will no longer pursue legal action against Marcopper/PlacerDome.

“It is simply ridiculous even as Marcopper/PlacerDome continues to deny justice and its clear responsibility for the devastated lives and environment of Mogpog,” she said.

In the MACEC-initiated signature drive, residents demanded the company to immediately rehabilitate the Mogpog river and other affected places. They also called for a total ban on mining in the province, immediate compensation for the victims and their families, widespread investigation on the state of health of the people in the province, prosecution and penal sanction to officials of Marcopper and PlacerDome who should be held responsible for the series of tragedies in Marinduque.

Lastly, Mogpogueños are seeking the scrapping of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 which they said continue to cause much of the sufferings of mining-affected people in Marinduque and other provinces.  

Principally authored by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when she was still a senator, the Mining Act or Republic Act 7942 grants transnational mining firms 100% ownership and control over large scale mining operations covering a maximum of 81,000 hectares of mineral-rich lands under a Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA).

GMA’s concern

It is bad enough that justice continues to be denied to people adversely affected by mining because of government inaction, says Manila-based Clemente Bautista of the Kalikasan – People’s Network for the Environment. Bautista went to Mogpog for the Dec. 6 rally.

But what makes matters worse, he adds, is when the government itself is more interested in placating mining firms and encouraging them to further mine the whole country rather than in first making sure that people victimized by mining disasters are first of all given justice and the environment rehabilitated by errant firms like Marcopper and PlacerDome.

Indirectly accusing the Arroyo government of conniving with the mining corporation to reopen its operations, Bautista said there are indications President Arroyo is more concerned in reopening and reviving dormant mining operations like Placer Dome’s Marcopper.

Frances Quimpo, executive director of the non-government Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC) shares Bautista’s opinion. She said among the first actions of the president on the tailings issue in Marinduque was the release of a P20 million fund endorsing the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to make a recommendation on how to clean up Boac river, instead of demanding Placer Dome to do just that and indemnify the victims.

She criticized the president’s action, saying it is a waste of government funds “when all that we can expect of USGS is a review of literature” on the subject.

But before any new action can be taken either by the government or Marcopper in Marinduque, they would first have to reckon with an enraged people. Despite or because of what happened to them, they vow to stand their ground to oppose any new or resumption of mining activities in their province.Bulatlat.com  

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