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Inadequate mining practices
AFTER an audit allegedly discovered inadequate mining practices, the government has threatened to shut down 12 more mines. According to the Environment department, these companies have inadequate social development efforts, inadequate mining practices and some have environmental violations.
Looking back, tragedies caused by mining operations did not prompt any government action to stop destructive mining operations or to address the impacts that these pose on the health, environment and basic rights of the people. Remember the environmental damages wrought by Canada’s Marcopper Placer Dome Project in Marinduque whose mine spill victims have not even been treated or compensated? In 2008, a landslide occurred in the mining area of Barangay Masara, Maco, Compostela Valley, causing the death of 24 and displacing thousands.
Economically speaking, host countries to large-scale mining is at a losing end because taxes paid by mining companies will not even compensate for the environmental damages and the natural resources mined and brought out of the country. Ironically, economic biodiversity losses defeat touted revenues from mining investments. A few years ago, University of the Philippines’ Prof. Arturo Boquiren said with a yearly revenue of P6.9 billion due to mining, the net social or economic loss for the country can be as much as P92.7 billion yearly.
With these, it is understandable why some quarters cannot fathom the purported economic gains behind the mining industry under the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, a law which allows the exploitation of our land and minerals by foreign mining corporations and thus perpetuates the violation of our patrimonial rights and sovereignty.
It is hoped that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources under the Duterte administration can salvage the rest of the country from the deluge of destructive large-scale and foreign mining operations.
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