Mindanao Groups Call for Alternative Mining Policy, Reject Cha-cha

Indigenous peoples, environmentalists, and religious groups in Mindanao united to protest the “rape of the environment” and called for an alternative mining policy and rejection of charter change.

BY TYRONE VELEZ
Bulatlat

SURIGAO CITY―At the heart of Surigao del Norte, touted as the “mining capital of Mindanao”, various groups united to reject the government’s mining policy and called for the formulation of an alternative people’s mining policy that is pro-people and pro-environment.

The five-day summit called the “Mindanao Convergence of Advocates for an Alternative Mining Policy,” united the religious, environmentalists, indigenous peoples, and mining-affected communities, and even small-scale miners in Mindanao to pursue the scrapping of the Mining Act of 1995.

The Mindanao Convergence discussed the effects of open-pit mining operations in six communities namely, Hinatuan island, Nonoc Island, Sison, Claver, Mainit, and Taganito.  

Delegates to the summit noted that the severe damage caused by open-pit mining is like the rape of the environment, making ghost towns out of communities and leaving them as deserts.  

Some 160 people attended the gathering, held at the Maharlika Training Center in Surigao del Norte, from April 17 to 21, and culminated in the celebration of Earth Day. 

Alternative

Bishop Zacarias Jimenez, chair of the Mindanao Episcopal Commission on Indigenous Peoples, called for an alternative policy based on the principles of respect for human dignity and the whole of creation, and the sustainability of life.

The Mindanao Convergence affirmed to carry the People’s Alternative Mining Policy as the framework for the promotion of a “sovereign national mining industry that serves as a catalyst of our national industrialization.”  

This is opposed to the Mining Act of 1995, which  is “pro-transnational corporations”(TNC), said the delegates.

The alternative policy was proposed by Agham (Scientists for the People), Defend Patrimony! and Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center – Friends of the Earth – Kasama sa Kalikasan  (LRC-KsK).

The proposal stresses the need to build industries and sustain agricultural growth.  It also calls for the stopping of foreign mining investments, the prosecution of mining TNCs for their record of environment destruction.

A case against the Mining Act was shown by Cordillera People’s Alliance’s chairperson Joan Carling, who presented a United Nations study saying countries reliant on exporting minerals still have a high rate of poverty. 

Carling stressed that mining activities reliant on foreign investments have not translated to high employment and improvement of the economy.  Ironically, profits raked by top transnational mining firms surpasses the gross national products of the countries where they extract minerals.

Cha-cha

The various groups also opposed the Arroyo-backed charter change which they said aims to “altogether delete the remaining provisions that protect the economy, our ecology, and our people’s civil and political liberties.”

In early 2004, the Supreme Court declared certain provisions of the Mining Act as unconstitutional, but reversed the decision within the same year.

In its unity statement, the Mindanao Convergence sees the Mining Act of 1995 as an instrument to the liberalization of the mining industry towards large-scale foreign mining, resulting to massive land-grabbing and destruction of ancestral lands of Lumad and Moro communities.

The Convergence called for more actions from the different sectors.  It addressed the religious to “be unrelenting in their opposition to large scale mining and to concretize its pastoral care and guidance by journeying with mining-affected communities in their struggles.” 

It also called on local government officials to support their constituents’ call for an end to large-scale mining, and for the media “to faithfully report and critically interpret the destruction large scale mining wrecks”.  

Their statement holds the Arroyo government accountable for “her fervent push for mining revitalization through the Mineral Action Plan.”

The summit ended with a march along Surigao City’s main streets and a protest at the regional office of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, the agency purveying mining liberalization in the country.

The convergence was led by the Sisters Association in Mindanao (Samin) together with the Philippine Misereor Partners and Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation; the Foundation for the Philippine Environment (FPE), LRC – KSK, Alternate Forum for Research in Mindanao (Afrim); and community-based anti-large scale mining groups like Mainit National Park Conservation Society (from Compostela Valley), and the Zamboanga del Norte People’s Alliance Against Mining.

The event was hosted by Katawhang Simbahan Alang Sa Malambuong Kabuhatan (KASAMAKA) Surigao del Norte, a conferential body of priests from the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart congregation, Catholic diocesan members, Iglesia Filipina Independiente and United Church of Christ in the Philippines. Bulatlat

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