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Sunday, July 08, 2007
N. Cotabato vice guv urges gov’t to slow down on mining
DAVAO CITY -- North Cotabato Vice Governor Emmanuel Piñol has called on the National Government to reconsider its aggressive attitude in pushing for more mining operations in the country, saying it will only aggravate the real threat of global warming.
Piñol, whose nine-year stint as governor of what used to be one of the poorest provinces in the country was marked by an unyielding "No Mining" policy, instead suggested that the Philippine Government give more focus to a well-planned and environmentally friendly agriculture to ensure the country's sustainable growth and at the same time contribute to the worldwide effort to combat global warming.
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"For the National Government to talk of starting efforts to arrest global warming but at the same time push for massive mining operations in many parts of the country is simply ironic," Vice Governor Piñol said.
Piñol said history will prove that mining operations have greatly damaged the environment and have very little impact on rural development as rich multinational companies are the main beneficiaries.
"To talk of mining as the seeming hope for national economic salvation of the Philippines is to ignore the fact that nowhere is there a mining area in the country where people ended up prosperous after the mining operations," he said.
In his nine-year term as governor of North Cotabato, he has maintained the "No Mining" policy in his province emphasizing that "I am not willing to see my province's mountains ripped apart in search of a few kilos of gold or copper."
Instead, he said these mountains would be more useful for the people if these are planted to such crops as rubber, oil palm or coconut.
Piñol, who decided to slide down to the Vice Governorship to give way to his former Vice Governor, Jesus N. Sacdalan, who was elected Governor last May, presided over the rapid transformation of North Cotabato from being one of the poorest provinces of the Philippines in 1998 to its current 29th rank among the top 30 provinces according to the National Statistics Coordination Board.
The economic turn-around of North Cotabato, which was once a battlefield for communist and secessionist groups and government troops, is attributed to what Vice Governor Piñol calls "sustainable and market-oriented agriculture."
Under his leadership, areas for rubber, oil palm, coconut and bananas expanded through the province's Plant Now Pay Later program where farmers are given seedling loans payable upon the start of harvest.
The uplands have been reserved for rubber trees, the midlands for coconut and banana, while the lowlands are for rice and oil palm. Fruit trees are also grown in selected areas in the province.
"Right now, we are working for the accreditation of our rubber farms in the "Carbon Credit" program under the Kyoto Protocol," he said emphasizing scientific studies in Malaysia have shown that rubber trees are among the most efficient converters of carbon dioxide to oxygen.
North Cotabato now has about 35,000 hectares of rubber trees, 25,000 hectares of coconut farms, 3,500 hectares of oil palm and very areas planted to midland table bananas.
Piñol, who has been designated by Governor Sacdalan as the head of the Province's Priority Crops Program, said the province is now targeting the vast reforestation areas and public lands in the province for rubber tree farming for poor families.
"Unless somebody could convince us that there is a huge mineral deposit underneath our soil in North Cotabato that would make each of our people millionaires, we must go slow on mining and just focus on agriculture," Pinol said. (BOT with Caloy Bautista of Sun.Star Davao)For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Zamboanga. (July 8, 2007 issue)
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