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Volume III,  Number 43              November 30 - December 6, 2003            Quezon City, Philippines


 





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Mining TNCs' ‘Gold Rush’

Under globalization, the Philippine government and mining firms are aggressively promoting direct foreign investments in mining, with the claim of advancing “sustainable and responsible mining” through the soon-to-be-approved National Minerals Policy (NMP).

BY DENNIS ESPADA
Bulatlat.com


“Pieces of gold, of the size of walnuts and eggs, are found by sifting the earth in the island of that king whom I led to our ships,” Venetian chronicler Antonio Pigafetta wrote in his diary (dated March 28, 1521) during the meeting of the brother-kings of Mazaua and Butuan (in northern Mindanao) with Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his men. “All the dishes of that king are of gold and also some portion of his house…”

Precious metals like gold thrive vastly in the Philippines since time immemorial, a fact that Pigafetta himself attested around 400 years ago. The richness of the country’s mineral resources – copper, nickel, chrome, zinc, silver, and other metals -- has lured foreign colonizers, from the Spanish to the Americans, to hawkishly claim its ownership and consequently gain huge profits from it.

The “gold rush” continues to this day. Under the globalization paradigm, mining transnational corporations (TNCs) are now taking a more dominant role in developing nations in their bid to revitalize the local minerals industry. With full-scale liberalization, direct foreign investments in mining activities are aggressively being promoted both by the Philippine government and mining firms with the claim of making use of “sustainable and responsible mining” through the National Minerals Policy (NMP).

But mining-affected communities together with environmentalists have hardened up their stance against corporate mining, where countless communities – along with their lives and livelihood - have been reduced to rubble due to ecological disasters and all-out sale of the country’s national patrimony.

From tolerance to promotion

The NMP was first presented by Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) Director Horacio Ramos in 1999. As a policy document, the NMP is part of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Medium Term Development Plan 2001-04 for the mining industry.

In a speech during the Annual National Mines Safety and Environmental Conference last Nov. 13 at the Manila Hotel which was attended by delegates from big mining firms, Macapagal-Arroyo reiterated the government’s policy for the minerals industry as “no longer just mere tolerance but active promotion” of mining.

As of July 30, the DENR has approved 16 exploration permits (EPs) covering 70,538 hectares; 188 mineral sharing production agreements (MPSAs) covering 314,462 hectares; and two financial technical and assistance agreements (FTAAs) covering 51,995 hectares of land.

The agency has also issued a memorandum order last October cutting the processing time of mining applications from 20 months to seven months. Until its term ends June next year, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration currently processes priority-mining projects worth $2.054 billion, in a bid to generate $242 million from 12 mining projects.

Despite this, representatives of mining firms have come out dissatisfied. The private Chamber of Mines, for instance, is complaining of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ (DENR) failure to fast track the implementation of large-scale mining projects, prompting calls from some sectors (such as the one made by Southern Leyte Rep. Aniceto Saludo) for the resignation of its secretary, Elisea Gozun, on alleged fraud and corruption.

The NMP is supposed to be adopted through a presidential executive order last March but the DENR was forced to delay it due to intense opposition from mining-affected communities and anti-corporate mining advocates.

The Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP), a federation of indigenous peoples, explained that the NMP is merely an addition to the existing laws, such as the Mining Act of 1995, which would drive away many tribal communities from their ancestral lands.

KAMP spokesperson Henry Borreo said that with the quick approval of the NMP, “the indigenous peoples are sure to expect another term of displacements and internal migrations as Macapagal-Arroyo is bent on kissing anybody’s ass just to maintain herself in power.”

A slump

In his critique on the NMP, Engineer Catalino Corpuz Jr., coordinator of Minewatch Asia-Pacific, stated the reasons behind the mining industry’s decline for the last two decades: First, copper and gold which before dominated in the metallic sector suffered a “downward trend” since the production boom in the 1980s; and second, “the problem of strategy” by the mining industry.

Corpuz explains: “Reserves were depleted but at the same time there was no vigorous exploration work done. In the gold industry, mining companies engaged in ‘high grading’. They mined the high-grade ore when the price of gold was high. When this was exhausted, only the low-grade ore was left to mine, but it was uneconomical to mine low-grade ore.” High production costs has also hit mining companies.

“The NMP blabbers so much about the so-called ‘sustainable development’ provisions of the NMP such as the protection of the environment, promotion of social and community responsibility, and competitive and prosperous minerals industry,” says Corpuz. “But all these are naught since the NMP neglected to include a clear policy on the urgent rehabilitation of abandoned and existing mine-sites.”

Fund-raising?

Opponents to the NMP suspect that Malacanang’s apparent rush to implement the NMP may be aimed at raising funds for the 2004 elections.

Saying that mining firms, like those in the oil and energy monopolies are among the major donors of campaign funds to local and national politicians, the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) says that the NMP is likely to attract transnational mining monopolies, “the kind that are known to retain politicians and military officials in their payroll.”

“There has been a strong lobby from the mining firms for the passage of the NMP. And like most lobbies by big business interests in this country, money is always a part of the deal,” Bayan secretary-general Teddy Casińo said.

The MGB, meanwhile, has organized a national mining conference this Dec. 3-4, to reinforce government’s pledge to enshrine the mining industry again and to win public support for existing mining projects.

But in any gathering concerning mining projects, the rights and interests of mine-affected people should come first, says the militant environmentalist group Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment (K-PNE).

K-PNE’s advocacy officer Clemente Bautista, who has visited desperately-polluted areas in Marinduque many times, says that the country’s minerals are depleting at a fast rate due to profit-driven and export-oriented motivation in the mining industry. “It foregoes long-term livelihood for our people, while they are made to bear the consequence of massive devastation to the environment like what the Marinduquenos are now experiencing as a result of Marcopper-Placer Dome's irresponsibility and greed, not to mention government negligence.”

Bautista said that the extraction of the country’s minerals and their exportation at their raw or semi-processed state must stop immediately. To truly revive the mining industry, he suggested that the government should enact a minerals policy that will orient the mining industry towards the establishment of the country’s own metals industry responsive to domestic needs. Bulatlat.com

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