Church Conference Bats for People’s Mining
Policy
A Subanon and a mine
worker met for the first to share their testimonies in a mining conference
in Manila. Their testimonies led to the drafting of a people’s mining
policy – a counter-measure to what Church leaders call government’s pro-TNC
and destructive mining program.
BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN
Bulatlat
 Timuay (tribe leader)
Jose “Boy” Anoy, a 60-year old Subanon, was driven out of his home in
Mt. Canatuan in Siocon,
Zamboanga del Norte (390 kms. northwest of Davao in southern Philippines).
A mine worker, Julian Gayomba, 63, became a victim of unfair labor
practice in his workplace in Lepanto, Mankayan, Benguet, northern
Philippines.
On Feb. 8, Anoy and
Gayomba met for the first to share their stories to more than 300 people
who attended a mining conference in Manila.
Held at the old
University of Sto.
Tomas, the Church People’s Conference on Mining aimed to unite the church
people and environmentalists in the campaign against large-scale mining,
to call for the scrapping of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 (PMA of
1995), and draw up a people’s alternative policy on mining.
Mt. Canatuan,
according to Anoy, is sacred land for Subanons. It is believed to be the
ancestral domain of Apo Manglang, the first person who settled in Siocon
in the 17th century. The mountain is also the town’s main
source of water.
Subanon villagers
know that the mountain has rich mineral deposits. But out of respect for
their traditional belief for sacred entities, Subanons have not practiced
mining. Instead they grow rubber and coconuts for living.
The entry of the
Canadian mining firm Toronto Ventures, Inc. (TVI) broke the peaceful life
of the villagers when, in 1996, it began to explore some 508 hectares of
Siocon - six years after gold was discovered in the area, Ayon said.
The initial TVI
operations, Anoy said, damaged the Canatuan and Bulubuan creeks, among
other bodies of water, including the species then living in these waters.
Anoy led his tribe’s fight against the company. It was a crusade that had
its risks, however.
In April last year,
Anoy, who has six children with his wife, was barred by the firm from
entering the mountain, even if his house was erected on it since 1963.
Forced to abandon the house that his parents built on the mountain in
1963, Anoy’s family now lives in the town’s lowland with no livelihood to
depend on.
Benguet poisoning
In Benguet,
meanwhile, Gayomba saw how his village in Mankayan has been badly affected
by the mining operations of Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company (LCMCo).
A tunnel dug by
Lepanto in the 1970s was supposed to promise more jobs in Mankayan.
Contrary to company claims, however, only about 60 of 2,000 workers who
were hired for Lepanto’s mining project came from Mankayan. The number of
mine workers dwindled further, Gayomba said, as modern equipment began to
replace manual labor.
The mining operation,
said Gayomba, also caused areas in Mankayan to sink by up to 10 feet.
Meanwhile, another
project that would cause the villagers more burden is being built. Lepanto
officials said the Tohking Exhaust Tunnel would add ventilation to
underground miners. Gayomba however said the project is just a pretext to
expand the company’s areas for mining exploration. For one, he said, the
exhaust tunnel has neither environmental compliance certificate (ECC) nor
public consent.
If completed, Gayomba,
the exhaust tunnel will result in the sinking of the towns of Palasahan,
Guinao-ang, Bulalacao, and Taneg and would lead to loss of water supply.
Gayomba told the
conference that he bagan entertaining doubts about the benefits of mining
while working as an electrician at the Western Minolco Corporation in Atok,
Benguet in 1972. During the company’s anniversary in 1972, the workers and
their families suffered food poisoning after partaking of the food given
by the firm. The victims of food poisoning were given medical treatment,
he said, but not compensation.
As president of the
National Mines and Alike workers’ Union (Namawun), Gayomba led a strike in
protest of the incident. An investigation conducted by union officials
with the support of rural health representatives, showed that the food
that poisoned them was placed in drums used to contain cyanide for
milling.
People’s mining
policy
The testimony of Anoy and Gayomba
highlighted the one-day conference at UST which tackled the dire effects
of mining and a people’s alternative mining policy. The conference was
held as Church leaders, environmentalists, people’s groups and NGOs geared
for a nationwide campaign opposing the Arroyo government’s mining program
which is expected to attract mining TNCs to invest in the country. Some
groups opposed to mining said the new government policy will rob the
country of its national patrimony aside from destroying the environment.
One participant in
the mining conference, American Becca Lawson of the Philippine
International Forum (PIF), said she was shocked to witness what mining
firms did to the country. “Mining firms pursue profit at the expense of
the environment and the people’s lives,” she said.
Lawson belied claims
instead of being benefited, the people particularly those living in mining
communities face displacement, poisoning, and disenfranchisement.
Church leaders and
other participants in the conference agreed that the PMA of 1995 is
detrimental to the Filipino people and that they should act before it is
too late. Fr. Vicente Cajilig of UST’s Contextualized Theology and Ethics
even referred to the mining program as a “silent tsunami” that engulf the
nation.
The
centerpiece of the Act is the Financial and/or Technical Assistance
Agreement (FTAA) which gives foreign mining TNCs 100 percent ownership and
control over the country’s mineral lands.
The people’s mining
policy was presented by Dr. Giovanni Tapang, chair of the
Movement for the Advancement of Science and
Technology for the People (Agham). In his draft, Tapang said the people’s
mining policy recognizes the significant role of mining and a “prosperous”
minerals industry. But it is opposed to government’s liberalization policy
as it would only worsen the crises in the mining industry and will only
benefit a few foreign corporations and not the Filipino people.
The
mining industry, Tapang said, should be developed in the framework of
national industrialization. The development of the country’s own basic and
medium industries, he said, will ensure a sustainable and sufficient
production of the country’s needs for capital and economic goods.
Moreover, the negative impact of mining to the environment will be
controllable.
Sharon Ruiz-Duremdes,
general secretary of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines,
challenged the Arroyo government to provide sustainable jobs, ensure
environment-friendly economic programs and declare a total ban on mining
especially on ancestral domain. Bulatlat
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