Yes to mining moratorium

Outraged mining executives aside, it is right for the government to start heeding lessons learned from our sad experiences in the mining industry.

Mining companies will always say that mining is good for the economy, that mining is booming, but who really gets the huge rewards from our country’s vast mineral wealth?

The Chamber of Mines and other business groups recently warned Malacañang against proceeding with the issuance and implementation of a draft EO titled “Institutionalizing and Implementing Reforms in the Philippine Mining Sector, Providing Policies and Guidelines therefor, and For Other Purposes.”

They said the proposed EO’s provisions would prove to be fatal to the industry once implemented, as it will drive away future investments in the industry and imperil existing projects.

On the other side are the civic, environmental and farmers groups pushing for a suspension of all mining activities in the country.

Jaybee Garganera, national coordinator of Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), said President Aquino should not cower under the pressure of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines, Mindanao Business Council, and other private sector groups that have already voiced opposition to the still unissued executive EO that they believe will be anti-mining.

“Contrary to the negative reaction of key players in the mining industry, we believe that a new executive order should be able to address pressing issues on the environment, especially now with the increased impacts of climate change and disasters experienced in the country,” Garganera said.

“We do not believe that any government policy should be labeled as ‘anti-mining’ simply because it does not favor the mining industry. We would like to pursue a rational mining policy that addresses the many problems raised since the aggressive promotion of mining in the Philippines,” Garganera said.

There is clearly an urgent need to lay the groundwork for transparency in the management of our natural resources, which the government has so far failed to do.

The indiscriminate issuance of mining permits by local governments has led to the degradation of the environment and such calamities as the recent landslide in Pantukan, Compostela Valley which claimed so many lives.

Our country has an abundance of natural resources, particularly non-renewable rich mineral deposits and even oil and gas deposits like those that are found around the waters of Palawan. But so far only a small cabal has been able to maximize the financial benefits from these natural resources.

The rich revenue streams from extractive activities like mining have failed to boost in particular the wealth of the people and the communities where these natural resources are located.

On the contrary, mass poverty has existed in these communities. Worst of all the people who failed to reap the benefits from their natural resources are the ones left with degraded environments, which put a strain on their ability to meet their own basic needs, if not endangering their lives altogether.

For instance, farmers from the different farming communities in Palawan where mining has entered told senators during a public hearing of the Senate Committee on Agriculture last December that mining has destroyed their farms.

The tailings from mines would seep into the soil and kill microorganisms that help their crops grow. Water for irrigating their farms has been contaminated with laterite, a red residual ore from the weathering of rocks and soil as a result of mining.

These farmers said there is no such thing as responsible mining. From their experience, all kinds of mines, whether legal or illegal, small- or large-scale are harmful to the ecosystem.

As for the much-touted economic benefits, ABS-CBN Foundation Managing Director Gina Lopez, who is spearheading the The Save Palawan Movement, cited data from a study made by University of the Philippines economics Prof. Arsenio Balisacan, which showed that poverty incidence in the mining sector has gone up from 27.84 percent in 1988 to 48.71 percent in 2009.

Former Commission on Elections chairman Christian Monsod, also a member of the movement, also said that from 2000 to 2009, the contribution of mining to the total excise tax collections of the Bureau of Internal Revenue was “minimal,” averaging only 0.7 percent.

Monsod said that there was a “disturbing” discrepancy between the value of mining exports and the reported production of minerals in the country during the same period. “The country is not getting a fair share of the value of the mineral resources,” he said.

If mining really brings in development then I wonder why hasn’t it been able to boost the nation’s economy or the local economies of the mining communities? Who has really profited from the development of our natural resources then?

It is no secret that huge flows of money from natural resources have fuelled corruption both in the public and private sector. There are widespread opportunities for shrewd and unscrupulous politicians, government officials and businessmen to plunder natural resources, lining their pockets without any care for the people who will have to pay the price.

It is very easy to say that our country could benefit from its natural resources and that the huge revenues from these could go toward improving the lives of our people. But we have yet to see this in the Philippine experience. We keep hearing promises of bonanzas and blessings, but so far we have seen only cautionary tales about corruption and environmental catastrophes.

Without effective financial management and macroeconomic planning and without appropriate environmental, labor and social responsibility standards, all kinds of mining or extractive activities should be suspended. –Ernesto F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today

ernestboyherrera@yahoo.com