Hell in Paradise

Mining operations in Marinduque have long been stopped but the toxic wastes dumped by the Marcopper Mining Corporation-Placer Dome Inc. from 1975 to 1991 into Marinduque's Calancan Bay continue to poison the lives of Marinduque residents.

BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN
Bulatlat

Lumps  on the hands and wounds in the feet are what Wilson Manuba (left, left photo) and father, acquire from Marcopper heavy metal poisoning, which eventually led to the amputation of the former's right leg.                                                                          Photos by Aubrey Makilan

BOAC, Marinduque – The Department of Health (DoH) earlier admitted it has no enough funds to do a full blown health assessment in Marinduque, an island province 170 kms south of Manila. With the crisis the country has been going through, the real number of affected individuals could not be identified. In an interview with Bulatlat, Wilson Manuba, a victim of the Marcopper heavy metal poisoning, even recalled that he paid for his medical examinations, for the ambulance service and for its fuel when he was brought to the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) in Manila for an operation in 2002.

In 1978 at the age of seven, Wilson began fishing to help his father in Calancan Bay off the village of San Isidro, Sta. Cruz, Marinduque. One day, he injured his right foot by stepping accidentally on a seashell. Wart-like lumps or inflammation began appearing on his foot. He went through an operation seven years later but the lumps kept coming back. The wounds became so severe that his right leg had to be amputated in September 2002. But the lumps reappeared in other parts of his body just after five months.

Even Wilson’s father has lumps on his hands, too. He has them for over 30 years now, he says. Father and son started to grow lumps on the hands after fish thorns pricked their hands.

Doctors diagnosed Wilson and his father as having high mercury toxicity in the blood. The other children in the Manuba family also complain of skin-related diseases, two of them suffer respiratory ailments. 

Meanwhile, the tragedy that struck the family of Felicidad Quindoza of Barangay Ipil is just as difficult to heal. On March 24, 1996, toxic mine tailings from the Marcopper mines were disgorged into the Makulapnit and Boac Rivers that ended up in Calancan Bay and other waterways.

Days after the incident, Felicidad’s son Marvic, then 11, complained of stomach pain after eating fish caught from the bay. Marvic became bed-ridden, lost his appetite and suffered bouts of high fever. Marvic died two years later; his death certificate stating heavy metal poisoning as cause. Complaining of respiratory problems, brother Marvin was also brought to the Lung Center in Quezon City. Doctors detected heavy metal elements in his blood. Although she wants to leave the village, Felicidad told Bulatlat they do not have enough money to start a new life in another place. Husband Rogelio drives a jeepney and brings home only P100 a day.

NINE YEARS AFTER: The Mogpog River, still contaminated nine years after the spill Photo by Aubrey SC Makilan

Today, both the Quindoza and Manuba families still fish in Calancan for food.

A hell in paradise

Within the Calancan Bay lies a 7-km long airstrip-like land formed from Marcopper's waste. The company refers to it as "causeway." The wisecracking residents bitterly kid each other that the island was the cause of their suffering. They say the company has claimed it as their private property, even putting up a checkpoint manned by its blue guards.

"It may look like 'Boracay' from a far but it is really a hell in paradise," said Ricky Rodas referring to the causeway. Rodas is the chair of Calancan Bay Fisherfolk Federation and a councilor of Barangay (village) Butilao in Sta.Cruz. He and his family live on top of a hill that overlooks the causeway.

In 1975, the Marcos government granted Marcopper a blanket permit to operate and allowed it to dump mine tailings at the Calancan Bay. Most environmental regulations were suspended as far as Marcopper's operations were concerned. Environmental groups say this is because at that time Marcos, through his cronies, owned 49 percent of the corporation.

When it rose to power in 1986, the Aquino administration banned the disposal of mine tailings at the Calancan Bay. But then, on May 13, 1988, President Corazon Aquino through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) turned full circle by allowing Marcopper to operate for 10 years and use the Tapian pit as its mine tailings dam.

When finally the government's Pollution Adjudication Board (PAB) confirmed that the fish-rich bay had become contaminated in 1991, it was too late to save it. The Calancan Bay, on which more than 2,000 fisherfolk depend for livelihood, had already accumulated tons of wastes, burying 80 sq. ms. of coral reefs. According to the Marinduque Council for Environment Concerns (MACEC), the bay is practically dead with 50 hectares of its fishing ground covered by toxic tailings.

Increasing number of casualties

The United States Geological Survey has earlier verified that lead is seeping out of the millions of tons of tailings Marcopper dumped into Calancan Bay between 1975-1991.

The DoH finding in 1996 and 1997 were also alarming. Various amounts of toxic chemicals were found in 75 children, 21 of whom have been detoxified. The rural health office’s findings also include cases of heart failure and practically all forms of cancer.

No assurance in detoxification

Roden Reynoso, 4, and Marvic were among the 22 patients treated in 1999 at the PGH. Most of the patients treated earlier at the hospital may already have gone into a relapse since they are now back in the fishing villages near Calancan Bay, said Macec’s Beth Manggol. Dr. Lyn Panganiban of the University of the Philippines-PGH concurred with the findings.

Meanwhile, at least 40 people have died bearing symptoms believed by their families to have been caused by the toxic wastes of Marcopper. But according to the NGO Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC), the number could be higher because of many unreported deaths in Marinduque.

The latest was Ambeth Relloque. He was to be brought by ambulance to the PGH in Manila last October upon the recommendation of Dr. Teodolfo Rejano, municipal health officer of Sta. Cruz, Marinduque because of suspected heavy metal poisoning. But he never reached the hospital.

Before Ambeth died on Oct. 18, he bore symptoms similar to those suffered by other children who died from poisoning caused by heavy metals which came from drinking water and eating seafoods from the bay.

Aside from Ambeth, his father Tido has also already grown very thin. He attributes his illness to taking in the poisons coming from Calancan. The Relloques live four kilometers from the bay and rely on farming and fishing for food.

Jobeth Molato of the Marinduqueños for the Interest of the Nation and the Environment (MINE) fears that the rest of Relloques, as well as the 700 other fishing families in the vicinity of Calancan, would meet the same fate as Ambeth and Tido. Bulatlat

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