Hazards of Corporate Mining
First of a two-part series
Safety is almost impossible in an industry like mining which
has been considered by the International Labor Organization (ILO) as the
most unsafe human activity.
BY LYN V. RAMO
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat
BAGUIO — Safety is
almost impossible in an industry like mining which has been considered by
the International Labor Organization (ILO) as the most unsafe human
activity.
The Philippines’
Mines and Geo-sciences Bureau (MGB) director however claims the Philippine
mining industry has already perfected safety in the mine site. MGB
Director Horacio Ramos made this statement during a weekly media forum
last week.
The MGB initiated
several activities last week in celebration of the mining safety and
environment week, including a mining caravan, golf, bowling and tennis
tournaments, an industry parade and field competitions involving mine
workers. A mine safety demonstration by Lepanto Consolidated Mining
Corporation (LCMCo) displayed mine workers’ safety consciousness.
Unreported
mine accidents
In a separate press
conference, James Tulipa of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU or May First
Movement)-Cordillera, said that mining companies in the region employ
deceiving tactics to evade records of accidents in the mine sites.
Tulipa said workers
who figure in accidents in the workplace are either made to sign their
daily time record or are assigned as janitors at the manager’s
change-room or lunchroom to make it appear that no accident ever occurred.
According to him, the
management makes the different departments in the mine compete for
zero-accident records, giving cash bonuses for workers and department
heads and a possible promotion for the mining boss.
Tulipa used to work
for the Itogon-Suyoc Mines, Inc. (ISMI), LCMCo, and was a contract miner
of Benguet Corporation’s (BC) Balatoc Partnership Mines. He led the ISMI
mine-workers’ union in the late 1990s and worked among the mine workers
of Philex Mining Corporation (Philex) as a trade union organizer. ISMI,
LCMCo, BC, Balatoc Partnership Mines and Philex all have mining operations
in the Cordillera region.
Tulipa said that both
Philex and LCMCo, the only remaining profitable mines in Benguet, use
similar tactics of not reporting work-related accidents, usually involving
rock and timber falls.
Tulipa blamed the
shift from conventional to mechanized mining methods which he said cause
more accidents in the mines. He cited a case of a heavy equipment operator
in Philex who suffocated because the ore gave in on the huge
load-haul-and-dump machine he was operating. Another worker was crushed to
the wall by a huge equipment.
Onerous
partnership
Nida Legazpi,
chairperson of the Itogon Inter-barangay Alliance (IIB-A), refuted BC’s
earlier claims that its contract mining is safe. Itogon is a municipality
of Benguet province, 200 kms north of Manila.
She also revealed that
those used by small-scale miners in Balatoc are actually abandoned,
rotting tunnels. Rotten timber, according to Legazpi, emits a
foul-smelling gas that causes deaths among small-scale miners.
“Miners
often have to run outside the tunnel for oxygen,” Legazpi explains. She
said that the gas is so potent that it can put out a lighted candle or
miner’s carbide lamps.
Legazpi
also lamented that more deaths occur today because miners no longer use
traditional non-electronic lighting device.
Legazpi also reported
fatal accidents involving contract miners that were not reported by the
BC. Worse, Legazpi said, these private miners are not covered by any
medical and security system and that the company does not extend any
benefit to them.
“Wala sa usapan
ang safety, dahil ang pinag-uusapan lang sa kontrata ay ang 60-40 sharing
scheme” (Safety was not included in the agreement because the mining
contract only dealt with the sharing arrangements), Legazpi said, adding
that the arrangement is onerous at the expense of the miners who have to
bear all production costs and risk losing their lives in the mine site.
Century-old plunder
Itogon has been the
site of corporate mining operations which BC started at the turn of the 20th
century. According to IIB-A, a century of plunder of Itogon’s mineral
and forest resources, including that of water which is used in gold,
copper and silver extraction, has left its environment devastated.
IIB-A demands that mining companies rehabilitate the mined-out
areas.
Today only Philex is
gainfully mining Itogon’s silver, copper and gold. Like BC, Philex also has the reputation of devastating a
large portion of agricultural lands due to its open-pit mining operations
that scraped the whole Camaring mountain in Sitio Alang in Brgy. Camp 3,
Itogon. Its mine effluents and silt find their way into the Agno River
rendering the San Roque Multi-purpose Dam in San Manuel heavily silted in
just two years.
Beyond Mankayan
Meanwhile, peasants in
Mankayan, another Benguet town, said that LCMCo has been causing
irreversible environmental damage not only in Mankayan but also in other
towns along the Abra River. Sinking,
they say, plagues the towns. The sinking in Colalo, a sub-village of
Mankayan, has in fact not stopped.
“Ti sinking ti
Colalo ket saan pay a simmardeng,” (The sinking of Colalo continues),
declares Albert Diego, Dangayan dagiti Umili a Maseknan iti Mankayan (Damayan
or concerned villagers’ association of Mankayan) spokesperson, saying
that even residents in the Poblacion are wary of an inevitable disaster
due to Lepanto’s operations. Diego recounts that 68 years of corporate
mining operations has devastated Mankayan. It has taken its toll on the
land, water and farms affecting not only Mankayan but also the downstream
provinces of Abra and Ilocos Sur.
Sinking in recent
years has rendered houses badly damaged and the water table lowered that
vegetable farmers could not plant until the rainy season.
No assistance came
from Lepanto except for stopgap measures which Diego described as “pang-kursunada
laeng” (palliatives).
Diego also said that
the Tohking exhaust pipes which LCMCo reopened recently in upper Mankayan
emitted fumes from the underground tunnels.
This pollution is not
controlled even with the scrubber machine that LCMCo installed to clean
the fumes.
“Haan a mabalin, haanmi a kayat.
Isardengda koma” (It won’t work, we are against it. They
should stop it), Diego said of Lepanto’s expansion project fearing that
the four town affected by the operations will be totally damaged if
corporate mining operations is not halted.
Animals are reportedly
dying or getting sick either from drinking the water from the tailings dam
or from the exhaust tunnel’s fumes.
“Inggana itatta ket
laklak-amen mi dayta a problema” (We still suffer from this problem
until now), Diego pointed out.
An alliance of
communities living along the Abra River from Benguet down to Ilocos Sur
called MAQUITACDG (which stands for Mankayan, Quirini, Tadian, Cervantes
Danggayan a Gunglo) supported Diego, saying that expanding Lepanto’s
operations will destroy the environment of several other towns aside from
the four adjacent towns of Mankayan in Benguet, Quirino and Cervantes in
Ilocos Sur and Tadian in Mountain Province. Nordis / Posted by Bulatlat
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