UN (United Nations) Special Rapporteur Philip Alston received reports on the alleged military abuses in Baay-Licuan including alleged destruction of crops, theft of civilian properties such as cows and other poultry, harassment and intimidation.
“And now, why is the 41st IB hell-bent in maintaining its intrusive presence in barrios adjacent to Capcapo?” Wadagan said.
But Lt. Eduardo Sia-ed, spokesman of the 41st Infantry Battalion belied such. The troops in Baay-Licuan, he said, “are for regular Internal Security Operations against the CPP/NPA/NDF (Communist Party of ther Philippines/New People’s Army/National Democratic Front) and not to secure mining explorations or exploitation of their environment.”
Sia-ed instead accused the CPP-NPA and other “left-leaning groups” of agitating the people and drawing their sympathy.
But Wadagan said that in more than a month of staying there, the military has not engaged in a firefight with any NPA unit yet. “It is the gold, and not the NPA that attracts the 41st IB in Baay-Licuan,” he insisted.
”It is pure leftist propaganda,” Sia-ed maintained.
“Mining boom”
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has declared that the investments in the Philippine mining industry have grown to over a billion dollars from 2004 to 2007.
The boom comes from the exploration, mining operation, and construction and development activities of some 63 mining companies, including that in Baay-Licuan town, the DENR said.
“The much-hailed ‘mining boom’ is definitely no cause for celebration,” Clemente Bautista Jr., national coordinator of Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE) however said.
“They have planted and activated 63 environmental time bombs all over the Philippines in the form of mostly foreign-owned large-scale mining projects,” he warned.
Mining permits, Bautista Jr. claimed, have been approved left and right from 2004 to 2007, “without regard for environmental protection and community consent.” He said the mining projects will “trigger a tidal wave of environmental and social catastrophes.”
”In the span of three years alone, the country was permitted to be turned into a literal and figurative mine field, a dangerous and barren landscape where all sorts of catastrophes and tragedies related to indiscriminate and large-scale mining operations could explode,” Bautista explained.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “the first casualties of this assault are not the government officials who approve mining permits nor the executives of filthy-rich firms, but the people and communities on the ground: indigenous peoples displaced from their ancestral lands, upland settlers, farmers, fisherfolk whose livelihoods are endangered by mine wastes.”
Baay-Licuan is part of the ancestral domain of the Binongan, the indigenous people of Abra. (Bulatlat.com)
