LARGE-scale mining's "dummy corporations" operating in Mindanao beware: Anti-mining advocates say they now know how to trace your mother companies.

Anti-mining advocates have found a more effective way to unmask large-scale miners that employ "dummy corporations" as they shared new research tools that enables them to trace the mother company of local mining operations here.

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Dubbed "Tracing the Gold, Tracing the Money," the Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM) and Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center--Kasama sa Kalikasan/Friends of the Earth-Philippines (LRC-KsK/FoE-Phils.) spearheaded a round-table discussion on financial tracking of mining companies in the country.

Held at Brewberry Cafe, here in Cagayan de Oro, organizers said "the discussion is designed for participants to learn research techniques to know where the money of the mining company is sourced from and who their markets are."

ATM said the forum is an offshoot of the training it sponsored last September 15 to 17, entitled "Financial Tracking of Mining Companies."

The training was designed for members of mining-affected communities and their support groups to know research campaign points for tracking finance resources and investments of mining companies.

Last year's trainees were expected to "share their inputs network partners and support groups in their respective areas of concern," the group said.
In the roundtable discussion, Ma. Cecilia Macabuac-Ferolin, Phd, director of Xavier University's Kinaadman Research Center, financial tracking of large-scale mining corporations--even those who try to appear as "medium-scale" mining companies--may be traced using a simple internet-based extension software.

She said this new kind of research in mining would enable researchers and anti-mining advocates to trace the ownership of the mining venture, the investors and their addresses and even the amount they invested in the venture.

This type of research, Ferolin said would include data under "supply chain" which are the inputs (i.e. labor, equipment), outputs--where the products are sent, users of the ores mined and what the end products are.

The production situation of the mining venture could also be unearthed with this type of research. This would include the cost of production, how much is produced by the mining venture and what is the sale from production.

By identifying the investors of erring mining ventures in the Philippines, Ferolin said an anti-mining advocate could write them directly and tell them what the mining ventures have been doing on the ground.

"Every cent these people invest (in the mining venture) is tantamount to every human rights violation (the mining venture) has committed (in the mining-affected communities," Ferolin said.

Financial tracking, she added was an effective tool for lobbying policy reforms thus, increasing international pressure citing the Chapas, Mexico experience as an example.

Grupo Mexico -- a mining venture--permanently shut down Pasta de Conchos coal mine in Coahuila state, where a major explosion in February 2005 claimed 65 miners.

The decision came when the company faced sanctions from the Coahuila state government and a new joint investigation by the federal government and a congressional committee--brought about by international pressure.

Suspected to have been a result of poor ventilation, the underground explosion caused the large portion of the facility to collapse.

That destruction, along with the constant presence of toxic gases, has prevented authorities from retrieving the bodies of the victims.(CBC)