Press Release
November 25, 2007

GOV'T URGED TO BLACKLIST FOREIGN MINING FIRMS NOTORIOUS
FOR DESPOILING ENVIRONMENT

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today urged the government to look into the background of foreign mining firms before allowing them to operate in the country to ensure that they will not bring ecological disasters and not frustrate the promise of mining ventures as a source of investments, job opportunities and wealth for the nation.

The opposition senator gave the advice in view of disturbing reports that foreign mining firms with awful records in complying with environment laws and regulations in the countries where they operate are now eyeing multi-million mining projects "spread across Cordillera and Mindanao."

Noting that the Arroyo administration considers foreign investments in the mining industry as a major factor in fuelling economic growth, Pimentel said whatever economic gains that will be derived from mining could not compensate for the destruction of vegetation, pollution of rivers and other water sources and displacement of indigenous communities that it may cause.

He echoed the fears of the non-government organization, Defend the Patrimony: "The world's largest mining firms - many of which are notorious in other parts of the globe - will bring this country into a state of calamity and will unleash an environmental tsunami that would engulf the people."

Mining, he said, indeed produces money for the people who work the mines, the owners of the mines and other people by way of the so-called "trickle down theory."

"Nevertheless, the best information we get is that far from benefiting the country as a whole, mining has devastated it," Pimentel said in a speech for the Interdisciplinary Conference on Mining sponsored by the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Kasama sa Kalikasan at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.

He said the BHP Billiton, one of the foreign mining giants that have come to the country, reportedly dumped 80,000 tons of rock mine tailings filled with toxic heavy metals such as copper, zinc, cadmium and lead directly into the Fly and Ok Tedi rivers in Papua New Guinea.

According to reports, the dumping of toxic mine tailings into the rivers has ruined the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of farmers, poisoned some 2,000 square kilometers of forests and contaminated two of Papua New Guinea's largest river system.

Pimentel said another giant mining firm operating in the country, Anglo-American has an apparently notorious record in "open and strip mining" in the more than 100 years of its existence.

In 2005, the Canada Commission for Environmental Cooperation named Anglo-American as one of the main toxic lead polluters throughout North America. Its operations reportedly killed crops and contaminated water resources in Venezuela, displaced the population and ruined the local Church in Tabaco in Columbia where the largest coal strip mine in the region lies.

As a result of the Supreme Court decision in December, 2004 reversing its original ruling declaring the Mining Act of 1995 unconstitutional, a stream of foreign mining firms have descended to the country to exploit rich mineral deposits.

Foreigners may now, in effect, "fully own and operate mining companies here."

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has projected that foreign investments in the mining sector will reach $7 billion to $10 billion in the next 10 years. The Bangko Sentral reported that net foreign direct investments rose to $1.72 billion in the first 10 months of 2007, the bulk of which was poured on the mining industry.

Pimentel said there is much wisdom in the recent statement of Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iniguez that there is a need to reassess the cost and the benefits of mining in the Philippines before the government opens the doors to more mining firms.

He said this view becomes more significant in the light of the conclusions of the fact-finding team from the United Kingdom led by Member of Parliament Clare Short and Columbian priest, Frank Nally, based on a two-month observation of mining operations in the country last year.

The team concluded that mining operations invariably evicted indigenous people from mining sites, polluted the rivers, destroyed mangroves, damaged coral reefs, ruined agriculture and damaged the nation's biodiversity.

The fact-finding team recommended, among other things, that mining firms should be made to adhere to the country's laws and to the best practices and standards of international mining or face cancellation of their permits; the Mining Act of 1995 should be amended or repealed to be substituted with a more environmental-friendly legislation.

The team also suggested that mining firms be required to post a bond to cover the potential damage that their operations could cause to the environment and the residents of the affected areas; and to submit genuine consultations with indigenous peoples before they are allowed to operate in the areas occupied by the latter.

News Latest News Feed