The Wealthy Elite and Pious Hypocrites
(republishing, copying, no
restrictions)
By: Father Shay Cullen
From
the distance they looked like children playing sand castles on the beach
but close up it was no fun, the children were working, some only
toddlers imitating their parents and elder siblings filling little
buckets with the pitch black sand, and filling the sacks and
wheelbarrows. The black sand is in fact chromite and with other minerals
its value has risen almost as quickly as that of rice and corn.
Environmentalists say the villagers will do little harm to the environment but they point to the mighty menace of the massive mechanical diggers, backhoes and bulldozers that plough and gouge the hills and mountainsides for minerals along the Zambales coast, just 200 kilometers North West of the capital Manila. The people of Palauig are battling to stop the mining of C-Square mining company to save the Mt. Tapulao, an environmentally protected area with unique wildlife.
The insatiable appetite of China is always grumbling and demanding to be fed more and more minerals. This greedy Asian giant is paying higher and higher prices to appease its addiction. The international mining companies have rushed to feed the monster and they never cease to dig, load, haul and ship as fast as they can to supply the smoke belching smelters of China. There is no processing or refining in the Philippines and raw ore is exported from the mountains to the waiting ships with government approval. There are few jobs for the locals who are the rightful heirs to the natural resources of their land. If there was responsible controlled mining with community participation there would be prosperity and the just proceeds could build schools and provide higher education, health and nutrition centers. But the people get nothing from the exploitation of their natural resources.
If the wealth is justly managed and shared to benefit the dwellers, tillers and indigenous people with ancestral rights to the land, it would lift them out of poverty. Many of the companies operate illegally and they can bribe officials to look the other way. The cost to the Filipino people is poverty, unemployment and greater environmental destruction, the loss of ancestral land, habitat and wild species. The bishops of the Philippines blame irresponsible mining for deforestation, landslides and floods that wash away villages and cover the rice fields with sand and silt when the typhoons lash the islands.
Almost the entire Archipelago was thrown open to exploitation by the Philippine government officials, members of congress and the chamber of mining a few yeas ago when they pressured the Supreme Court of the Philippines to declare unconstitutional a 1995 law that strictly controlled mining and set standards that protected the environment and the rights of the people to benefit from the development of their natural resources.
All those legal protections are now gone and the nation is experiencing growing social unrest as the population in the mining areas are protesting injustice and exploitation. The damage to the mountains, rivers and environment and the lives of the people, caused by this ecological exploitation, aided and betted by the wealthy elite, is beyond calculation.
Villagers are revolting and struggling to stop the destruction of their villages and environment in Nueva Vizcaya province six hours north of Manila where a huge government backed mining operation is being challenged. The People of Didipio, a remote village, set up roadblocks to stop the Australian mining giant Oceana Gold from open pit mining and constructing tailing dams on their ancestral land. They are brave and determined people.
Governor Luisa Lloren Cuaresma backed them and issued a stop order to Oceana Gold but the national government overturned it and backed the mining company over the people. The wealthy elite are behind the destructive mining and colonial style exploitation and there is nothing at present to stop them and help the people besides the voice of the Church and civil society campaigners. The only solution is to rewrite and reinstate the 1995 law that protects the people and battle corruption on all levels. That’s no easy task in a country where many of elite are ardent church going Catholics and pious hypocrites. END
