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Monday, December 08, 2003
Church urges Arroyo: Recall mining permits
By Manuel Quirino
KORONADAL CITY -- The religious community has strongly called on President Arroyo to revoke licenses issued to mining firms, and to issue a suspension order to all large-scale mining activities nationwide.
Sister Susan Bolanio, director of the diocese's Social Action Center (SAC), also renewed calls for the scrapping of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, saying the law "has opened our mineral wealth to full exploitation by foreign investors, thus surrendering our national patrimony and sovereignty to corporate entities that have the control of capital and technical know-how."
"The law is not based on Philippine realities. We are an archipelago with fragile ecosystems and the areas where minerals are located are inhabited mainly by indigenous peoples," the nun said.
"The law [also] does not guarantee the recognition of the rights of the indigenous peoples to their territories and their right of self-determination," she added.
The demands were contained in a position paper the SAC's Justice and Peace Desk sent to various national government offices a few days ago.
At present, a town within the diocese plays host to the mining firm Tampakan Mineral Resources Corp (TMRC), a company 60-percent owned by local businessmen and the Australian-owned Indophil Resources NL, 40-percent.
TMRC, which began its exploratory drilling last July, earlier bared the existence of higher-grade gold and copper deposits along its approved mineral exploration area, which straddles three provinces, two of which are directly under the diocesan territory.
The project was re-launched last January, more than two years after the Western Mining Corp, another Australian firm, abandoned it. The project was described as a world-class mining resource and cited as one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits in Southeast Asia.
TMRC's 30,000-hectare exploration area covers barangays Datal Blao in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat; Danlag, Tablu and Pula Bato in Tampakan, South Cotabato and barangay Kimlawis in Kiblawan, Davao del Sur.
Rolando Doria, TMRC project coordinator, earlier said the firm would conduct full-blown mining operation, depending on the results of their exploratory findings, probably not later than 2008.
Bolanio likewise called for the rejection of the draft National Minerals' Policy Framework (NMPF), saying that it "allows further destruction of the environment especially with the recommendation to allow the disposal of mine tailings into the sea."
"Instead of strictly regulating the unauthorized disposal of tailings into the environment, mining companies are merely asked to pay P50/ton for the damages that they have incurred," she said.
To make matters worse, the position paper went on to say that under the draft, NMPF "mining companies are allowed to operate in areas of known selsmicity and in developed areas."
"They [mining firms] are required only to institute an emergency response program to respond to problems that may arise in the future in these [mining affected] areas," the position paper said.
Bolanio also demanded for the formation of an inter-sectoral body that will study the impact of mining policies.
(December 8, 2003 issue)
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