Leaked presidential document on mining puts industry in tizz

HONG KONG (mabuhay) : Claims that a leaked document form the office of the president of the Philippines, Noynoy Aquino, entitle, institutionalizing and Implementing Reforms in the Philippine Mining Sector, Providing Policies and Guidelines and for Other Purposes, the threatens to clean up the roughshod practices of the industry, have put various interest groups in a tizz.

Fearing that Aquino intended to tighten up o the rampant abuses of human, property and ecological rights that have been attribute to the mining industry, the Chamber of Mines an associated groups, like the Chamber of  Commerce and Industry, has been flooding the nation’s newspaper with full-page advertisements and articles.

The two industry pressure groups are claiming that proposes changes would “unduly delay all on-going projects, stop short all exploration of new mining permits.”

Philippine-owned mining companies have come into their own over recent years, as legislation in Australia, Canada and Europe now threatens companies with prosecution at home for violations of mining and ecological laws in foreign countries.

Consequently, the demand for services from Philippine-owned companies to act as the front men in the  dirty business of procuring the mining permits, bribing local officials, forcefully ejecting farmers from their land and squashing local residence, has risen dramatically.

The Philippine mining industry likes to divide the public debate into two camps, those who are for mining and those who are against it.

However the people who are labeled anti-mining as such, but anti-irresponsible mining; the only type they have seen in the Philippines.

Two-thirds of new mining permit application fall within the boundaries of the Ancestral Domain of Indigenous Peoples and require agreement according to the Free Prior and Informed Consent legislation, which indigenous peoples say is widely ignored and abused.

In response to the media onslaught from the Chamber of onslaught from the Chamber of Mines, indigenous peoples have launched their own campaign, to deck the whole country in a One Thousand Streamers campaign.

Begin on March 3, the 17^th anniversary of the proclamation of the controversial mining Act 1995, a network of group says it will systematically deck out the whole country in bright colored streamers to draw attention to the Impingement by mining companies on the right of self-determination of indigenous peoples.

Launched on February 20, at the College of the Holy Spirit in Manila, the campaign has the support of the Church, academe and indigenous organization campaigning for responsible mining.

The campaign will run for a whole year and highlight significant dates, such as Earth day on April 22, International Day of World Indigenous People on August 9 and Annual Mine Safe Week, sponsored by the Department of the Environment and natural Resources and the Chamber of mines tin the second week of November

The campaign will include a series of discussion groups and educational seminar to be held across the country.

It will also include on site educational tours of natural forest and mountain areas, so that people may be better informed on the dangers that mining poses to the food chain and the health of the planet, CBCP News reports.