AGAINST CREW'S MINING PROJECT
Fr. Edwin Gariguez
Feb 22, 2006
Updated 01:26am (Mla time)
Inquirer

THIS is a reaction to the Talk of the Town section last Feb. 5.

In behalf of the stakeholder communities of Mindoro Island, I would like to present our real objections to the mining project of Crew-Philippines:

1. It is true that “there had been calls to block Aglubang Mining Corporation and Crew.” But these have been persistently going on even before the disastrous floods that struck Calapan City and its neighboring towns last December 2006. In fact, the opposition to the project is overwhelming, coming not only from the Church, indigenous peoples and civil society but also from elected officials and the councils of the affected municipalities and city. Way back in January 2002, a provincial ordinance declared a 25-year mining moratorium in the province.

2. The reason for opposing the project stems not from any speculation but from the fact that the mining concession is inside the province’s critical watershed. Strip mining poses the risks of erosion, flooding, degradation of agricultural lands, loss of biodiversity, etc. This is mentioned in the pre-feasibility studies conducted by Kvaerner Metals, which was commissioned by the mining company itself.

3. The claim that mining will make Mindoro “one of the richest provinces in the country” is ludicrous considering the destruction that mining will cause to the environment. Former Environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez himself said: “What does it gain a nation to be short-sighted and merely think of money when an irreparable damage to the environment will cost human lives, health and livelihood capacity of our farmers and fisherfolk, endangering the food security of our people?”

4. Crew professes that it treats the indigenous peoples equally and promises them great benefits. But what it fails to declare is that 9,720 hectares covered by its application is inside the ancestral domains of the Alangan and Tadyawan Mangyan tribes. What is more deplorable is the way a group of Mangyans has been manipulated to allow the company to project a façade of acceptability. But the fact is that Crew’s entry to the Mangyan ancestral lands constitutes large-scale landgrabbing.

5. Lastly, the claim that the Philippines has 25 percent of the world’s nickel reserves is grossly misleading and needs to be substantiated.

With all the hullabaloo about mining as the “ticket to progress,” we are more inclined to believe the position of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines that “the promised economic benefits of mining by the transnational corporations are outweighed by the dislocation of communities, especially among our indigenous brothers and sisters, and the risks to health and livelihood and massive environmental damage.”

FR. EDWIN A. GARIGUEZ, Bishop’s Residence, Calapan City