Government’s “30 pieces of silver mentality”
Allows Mining Disasters across the Country
We detest the Arroyo government’s
rejection of the report of the independent commission investigating the
Lafayette mine spills in Rapu-rapu island.
Blinded by the glare of mining
investments, Arroyo is willing to sell out the environment and patrimony
of the country for “30 pieces of silver”. We fear that Arroyo’s message
tells mining companies that they can go about their operations without
regard for the environment because government acts as their guarantor for
any kind of misconduct.
The Commission drew its findings from
studies of various units of the University of the Philippines,
non-government organizations with expertise on environmental cases, the
Department of Health and other government agencies. It also reportedly
interviewed key officials of Lafayette. Malacanang’s negation of the
Commission’s findings renders futile all attempts to independently probe
similar cases in the future since government can readily bail out these
“mining companies in distress.”
This policy of ‘environmental impunity’
will most likely pervade the 11 priority mining projects in Mindanao, an
island where the environment has already seen wanton destruction from
massive logging, tree plantations, and agribusiness plantations.
Mining TNCs now undertaking operations in
Mindanao are the first and the loudest to cheer Malacanang’s ‘no mining
ban’ policy. They are TVI and Sagittarius Mines Inc. TVI is facing stiff
opposition from the Subanen of Mt. Canatuan in Siocon, Zamboanga del
Norte. SMI, the new face of the hated Western Mining Corporation, has been
virtually condemned by the people of SOCSKARGEN led by 3 Catholic
bishops. Clearly, Arroyo has just emboldened these companies to skirt the
strong, serious, and legitimate environmental, health, human rights,
ancestral land rights, and other social issues hurled by the peoples of
Mindanao against these mining TNCs.
When Pres. Arroyo rejected the report of
the commission led by Bishop Arturo Bastes, she made it clear to all that
accountability of mining TNCs for environmental destruction can be
subordinated to the hyped economic benefits they supposedly bring.
In truth, mining transnational
corporations bring in little monetary benefits compared to the loss of
patrimony, destruction to the environment, eviction of indigenous peoples
from their ancestral domains, and the easing out of small scale miners.
Secretary Ignacio Bunye can not certainly
make fools of us when he said that banning large-scale mining would be “a
disservice to our people if our full mineral potential is not realized as
this is clearly a source of employment and development.” Our mining
industry is extractive and export-oriented and does not meet our demands
for genuine national development. So, the development that Bunye is
referring to does not redound to the Filipino people; he means fattening
the pockets of global mining giants.
What this government means to say with the
negation of the Bastes report is that it shall never review nor scrap the
Mining Act of 1995 because Arroyo can not simply abandon her servility to
the interests of mining TNCs. Her “30 pieces of silver mentality” on the
Bastes report marks this glaring treachery.
Sr. Ma. Carmen Diane
T. Cabasagan, RGS
Initiator
Panalipdan! Mindanao
(Defenders and Advocates for the Environment, Creation, and Patrimony)
Posted by Bulatlat
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