Ignoring a major problem

DAVAO CITY — When the South Cotabato governor told media last week that only the courts could stop the provincial government from implementing an open-pit mining ban, he was virtually telling the national government the next recourse to solve the problem.

This is a case of national leaders and agency officials taking an issue lightly until learning of its implications. At stake are potential mining investments that may never be realized. Unlike other contested projects that may have other options, mining is location-specific; it will be ridiculous to build tunnels to extract minerals on shallow ground.

Instead of holding dialogues and information campaigns prior to the approval of the province’s environment code last June that banned open-pit mining, national agencies took the issue for granted.

The new government has moved quickly, but instead of explaining the rationale of surface mining subject to strict conditions, the Palace sent to the provincial capitol a low-level team of officials from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

When that team failed, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) issued a memorandum to the South Cotabato provincial government. The DILG secretary used a friendly heading in this memorandum: “Request for review of South Cotabato Sangguniang Panlalawigan Ordinance No. 04 S. 2010 which imposes an absolute prohibition on open pit mining.”

Nevertheless, it underscored that such ban is not within the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, thus the provincial government should introduce changes in the local law and in its implementation suspended pending the review. As expected, South Cotabato officials stood firm. The measure’s implementing rules and regulations have yet to be finalized, thus there is no basis for the ban.

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The next move, as indirectly suggested by the governor, is for the affected party to hale the provincial government to court once the ordinance takes effect, with a prayer for favorable ruling just like what the banana industry obtained from the appellate court in relation to this city’s ordinance banning aerial spray of agrochemicals.

The aerial spraying ban, however, is a different issue since the banana industry has documents to disprove claims that it has resulted in health problems among communities near plantations. Also, the industry noted the ban will cause economic dislocation among exporting companies and even farmer cooperatives who own plantation.

In South Cotabato’s mining case, miners or the DENR have yet to present arguments to support open-pit mining. Opportunity losses could only be cited at this point since the affected foreign-controlled firm has yet to start operation.

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Open-pit mining ban is not new. Close to two decades ago, environmental groups raised the issue before the DENR citing how a major company has scraped square kilometers of land in Grand Antamok in Itogon, Benguet.

I have written several reports on this and have stayed in Itogon for a week to interview stakeholders and witnessed how surface mining could turn agriculturally productive areas into wasteland.

The project proponent had underscored during my interviews that there was no other way to extract minerals in Grand Antamok except through open-pit mining. Figures would have significantly changed now but the method was comparatively cost-efficient and company officials promised they would rehabilitate affected areas before the project was completed.

Rehabilitation was not required in the environmental compliance certificate, however, thus compelling the firm — which at that time was having financial problems — to do it was difficult since ecosystem repair is capital-intensive.

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DENR officials in the early 1990s had clearer answers on this issue. An Environment undersecretary known for his progressive views said new open-pit mining projects would be implemented in several phases to allow rehabilitation of mined areas before the proponent could proceed to the next mineral extraction phase.

Such scheme, financed by an environmental guarantee fund from the mining company, was supposed to be regularly monitored and assessed by government agencies and the environmental certificate review committee. Rehabilitation, supervised by the company, would have the participation of civil society and local residents.

The area where open-pit mining was applied should be productive, with fast-growing food crops already harvested, before the next mining phase starts, the official said. However, it was doubtful if such measure was ever applied by the DENR or even turned into a policy through an administrative order.

It is something similar to plan documents that could have saved lives but shelved, or shredded, instead. It’s like a disaster-prone areas list prepared by the DENR after the Ormoc tragedy in Leyte province in November 1991 but went missing in succeeding years. –Businessworld