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Thursday, December 09, 2004
Editorial: Anti-environment
PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's speech in Cagayan de Oro lauding the Supreme Court for its decision to uphold the Mining Act of 1995 only goes to show her administration's generally anti-environmental stance as viewed by green and militant groups.
The speech which was interspersed with salutations on the establishment of the Court of Appeals (CA) offices in Cagayan de Oro comes even as her administration pushed for the total log ban on two provinces that were devastated by typhoons "Winnie" and "Monsod."
In general however her administration had been criticized by these environmental and cause-oriented groups for adopting a favorable, biased stance for multinational companies of which the Mining Act is one example.
The Mining Act gives substantial room for multinational companies for exploiting the country's mineral resources with little regulation if at all.
Government's reasoning is that these multinational companies have the technology to fully excavate these minerals which they expect could propel the country's economy to economic progress.
As the President said the country could easily become the fifth largest producer of minerals in the world if its vast mineral resources have been fully tapped.
What was left unsaid by President Arroyo and officials from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) however is the resulting destruction to the ecology of these mining areas and the oft repeated complaint that unabated mining would displace the various lumad communities in Mindanao.
President Arroyo especially made mention of Mindanao as having the largest repository of minerals in the country. With the approval of the Mining Act and the seeming refusal by the DENR to adopt a total log ban in the country as shown in their rejection to penalize the country's top nine log firms Mindanao had been declared open season for these big companies.
With open season upon us expect the DENR not to stand in the way of these giant domestic and multinational companies as they cut down logs and extract minerals without so much concern that little regulation of these activities would expose Mindanao to the ravages of these typhoons.
In essence what government should have done is to review and amend portions of the Mining Act in order to ensure that the lumad communities are protected and mineral exploration can be done on a coordinated, highly regulated basis.
However the national government entrusted instead this control to multinationl companies. So much for national posterity.
(December 9, 2004 issue)
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