Occupational hazards in mining
Beyond the Glitter
Conclusion
Mining
employs only 1% of the country’s total labor force yet poses great
hazards not just to workers but the communities as well.
BY LYN V. RAMO
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat
A Department of Health
(DoH)-awarded study by Dr. Ana Marie Leung, convenor of Save the Abra
River Movement (STARM), reveals that 75% of LCMCo mine workers sustain
mine-related injuries ranging from simple cuts to fractured bones. The study also disclosed that underground mine workers are
exposed to extreme heat, loud noise, vibration of equipment dust and
fumes, among others.
“These occur because
corporate mining uses cyanide and other toxic chemicals and employs heavy
machinery that emit fumes underground” Leung said. She refuted LCMCo’s
Project Development Manager Jake Foronda’s claim that LCMCo does not
pollute the Abra River.
Leung welcomes the
announcement made by Engr. Felizardo Gacad, Jr. chief of the Mines
Environment and Safety Division of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the
Cordillera Administrative Region (MGB-CAR) that it will look into
STARM’s findings on LCMCo, saying that “it is but fitting for the
government to check hazardous mining effluents.”
A 1997 report by the
Institute for Occupational Health and Safety and Development (IOHSAD) said
that the leading types of accident in the mines, according to frequency,
are: being hit by falling objects, suffocation from chemical fumes, and
crushing injuries.
Dr. Ponciano Aberin,
head of the DOH-Cordillera’s People with Disability Affairs, found out
in 2003 that many miners suffer from hearing defects due to blasting
operations in underground tunnels.
Inherently unsafe
Joan Carling,
chairperson of the militant Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), said that
the evaluation on mining safety should come from the people and not from
mining companies whose only interest is to extract profits. She added that
compared to the profits raked in by mining firms, the actual benefits
extended to host communities are way too small.
“Mining will always
be a part of the economy,” Carling said,” but the problem right now is
the kind of technology used and the entities benefiting from these.”
Carling pointed out
that mining operations have been in the country for centuries, “but
until now, we cannot even produce our own sewing needles,” she said.
She also noted how
corporate mining does not support national industrialization, being
heavily dependent on foreign investments.
An alternative mining
policy is being prepared by progressive party list Bayan Muna
representatives in Congress in the wake of a nationwide opposition to the
Philippine Mining Act of 1995 (RA 7942) and the National Policy Agenda to
Revitalize Mining in the Philippines (EO 270) as detailed in the Mineral
Action Plan (MAP).
According to Carling,
the proposal for a new mineral policy is based on a national industry that
ensures the protection of our environment and the direct benefit of
communities. “It should be geared away from dependence to foreign
investment and foreign debt”, she said.
CPA called on mining
companies to “look beyond the glitters of gold and money, and promote
the welfare, interests and rights of communities and the protection of the
environment”.
MAP: not an answer
to the fiscal crisis
Last September,
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, signed the MAP, signaling what
Kalikasan – People’s Network for the Environment (K-PNE) called a
“frenzied rush to mine all Philippine mineral resources.”
Under MAP, government
agencies are mandated to resolve issues between communities and mining
corporations in order to attract foreign capital into the mining industry.
K-PNE national
coordinator Clemente Bautista scored government claims that MAP’s
implementation would lead to a more prosperous minerals industry that
could help ease the government’s budgetary and fiscal woes.
In fact, Bautista
says, “the liberalization of the mining industry, which MAP is all
about, will worsen the fiscal crisis.”
The MAP allows 100
percent repatriation of capital and profits, a 10-year tax holiday,
capital tax exemptions, duty-free importation of equipment and machinery
and other rights and privileges that tend to trample upon rights of host
communities and the wanton disregard of the environment.
It also shortened the processing time for mining applications by
downgrading the participation of local government units in approving
mining projects in their respective areas and harmonizing conflicting laws
such as the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) with the Mining Act.
Bautista said that
these erroneous economic policies are one of the major reasons in the
government’s low revenue collection and a ballooning budget deficit. Bulatlat
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