Wednesday, September 24, 2008 Oledan: Miscalculation By Radzini Oledan
THE Arroyo administration has openly declared support for 24 Priority Mining Projects encompassing a total of 176,000 hectares, mostly in the Cordillera Region, Southern Mindanao Region and Caraga Region. Largest among these are the Tampakan Copper Project (31,600 has) in South Cotabato, Amacan Copper Project (27,058 has) in Compostela Valley, Nonoc Nickel Project (25,000 has) in Surigao del Norte, Didipio Copper Project (21,465 has) in Nueva Vizcaya, and Pujada Nickel Project (11,799 has) in Davao Oriental.
This is in line with the promotion of mining liberalization as a national framework to increase economic growth and expand public revenue base needed to achieve sustainable development and reduce poverty. Mining liberalization is embodied in the structural adjustment programs by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The Mindanao region is endowed with metallic (3.6 million tons) and nonmetallic (8 billion tons) minerals. Metallic deposits include gold (49 percent of the country's reserve), nickel (63 percent of national deposits), chromite, copper, cobalt, lead, manganese, silver, iron ore, and zinc. Nonmetallic minerals include silica, limestone, shale, salt, and tuff, fire, kaolin tic, and bentonitic clay.
Mindanao also has about 37.5 million metric tons of coal deposits, accounting for 18 percent of national reserves. Eastern Mindanao has been identified to have large concentrations of gold, copper, iron, chromium, nickel, cobalt, platinum, and manganese. Zamboanga Peninsula has considerable deposits of gold, copper, chromium, and iron. Southern Mindanao is rich in copper and gold deposits (Vidal, 2005).
Despite high profile disasters that led to the decline of mining in the early and mid 1990's, large-scale mining activities in Mindanao are reintroduced. The Manila Mining Corporation in Surigao del Norte damaged the area's fragile ecological system and claimed the lives of many. The mine of the Malangas Coal Corporation in Zamboanga del Sur caved in due to a poorly built tunnel that fell short of safety standards.
The Mindanao environment was heavily destroyed by logging and mining operations but the entry of large scale mining today is encouraged by the government with a policy framework to ensure safety and respect to the indigenous tribes.
The two most relevant laws governing mining activities are Republic Acts (RAs) 7076 and 7942. RA 7076 or the People's Small-Scale Mining Act of 1991 was enacted to promote the small-scale mining program of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Small scale is defined as a mining area that is not more than 20 hectares and whose operations rely heavily on manual labor. On a different scale, RA 7942 or the Mining Act of 1995 deals with the management of large-scale mining activities. The RA aimed to revitalize the mining industry through a system of incentives and more liberalized modes of entry. It also explicitly addresses the issues of environmental protection, mine closure, IPs, and equitable sharing of the benefits of mining among major stakeholders.
The Mining Act aims to balance the need to encourage foreign investments with safeguarding the environment, mining communities, and the IPs. It is one of the few countries in the world with a mining law that requires the "prior informed consent" of IPs.
Ipra's "free and prior informed consent" (FPIC) has granted IPs and their communities the right and power to suspend or terminate any activity on their lands that violates the FPIC process or that has violated the terms and condition of a previously granted FPIC.
Most of the mining tenements are located inside Lumad 's ancestral territories. Community accounts would show that harassment, dislocation and even death hounds those who oppose the project.
The goal of the Mining Act of 1995 is to speed up the integration of the country as a major source of mineral resources in the global market. Government expects to earn potential revenues of US$6.79 billion from the mineral development projects in Mindanao alone.
Experts and technocrats failed to calculate the possible environmental loss and adverse impact to communities that these projects entail.
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