People's Unity Statement on the Philippine Mineral Action Plan
Published by MAC on 2004-06-21
The Unity Statement was drafted by the Kalikasan-People's Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE), Haribon Foundation, Youth for Sustainable Devolopment Association (YSDA), Legal-Resource Center (LRC-KsK), Philippine Federation for Environmental Concerns (PFEC) and Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC). The Unity Statement is based on the critique and position of the group on the Draft Mineral Action Plan which is now being fast-tracked by the Arroyo's administration.
Aside form the group, Task Force Macalajar, AGHAM, Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan sa Pilipinas (KAMP) signified their support.
This is part of the collective efforts of various mining-affected commmunities, people's organizations, environment advocates and NGOs to oppose the government's continuing policy to sell out our mineral resources to foreign investors at the expense of the Filipino people and the environment.
The group is circulating the statement to gather signatures from other organizations. To signify your support please reply to this email and attached your name and organization. You can send your reply to kpne@edsamail.com.ph, advocacy@haribon.org.ph, lodelm@yahoo.com, rcabonegro@wwf.org.ph or cec@tri-isys.com.
Clemente G. Bautista
Kalikasan-PNE
People's Unity Statement on the Mineral Action Plan
June 21st 2004
Stop the Plunder of our Mineral Resources, Reject the Government's Mineral Action Plan!
The Arroyo administration stubbornly refuses to heed the people's protests on the aborted National Minerals Policy (NMP). It is again risking a major policy rift with the people. Last year, we made the people's position clear against liberalizing the mining industry by trashing the NMP. Now, the abhorrent policy is back with a draft Mineral Action Plan (MAP) that is a lot worse. MAP is a grand plan of the government to subvert the people's rights and abandon the welfare of our environment. It is a clear sell-out not only of our minerals but the mineral industry itself to foreign investors.
Even as we have grown tired of repeatedly pointing out the deficiencies and fundamental flaws of the government's mining agenda, we reiterate our common positions, to wit:
· We oppose the liberalization of the mining industry. Hidden behind the government's call, recognizing the "critical role" of investments in the minerals industry is a subliminal message that the country must fully liberalize the sector in order to attain goals of national development and poverty alleviation. In the nine-year implementation of the mining liberalization strategy, the minerals industry failed to develop; actually it further declined. This is not because of people's protests, as the industry accuses, but this is largely due to its historical dependence on the world market which has suffered from a severe slump in metal prices for the past decades. All these years, the government has allowed massive destruction and exploitation of our forest and mineral resources primarily to satisfy the profit-making appetites of a few local and transnational mining corporations.
· We resist the extractive, export-oriented and import-dependent nature of the minerals industry. We expect the government to develop the mining industry based on a strategic framework of national industrialization rather than a relentless exposure to the vagaries of the world market for minerals and metals. With a strategic plan for mineral and industrial development, extraction of mineral resources can be prioritized if not limited to our country's need for economic progress, thus, immediately minimizing destructive impacts. We similarly create more jobs in the long term. We cut back on mining for short-term goals of profit for local and TNC mining, of earning foreign exchange for our foreign debt, or of meeting the wayward demands of the world market. MAP's concession to the people's demands, with the phrases "value-adding" and the "development of downstream industries" leaves much to be heard. Without the explication of clear cut directions, it is patently lip-service. We are not satisfied with the MAP's phrasing of the development of downstream industries because, the whole policy framework of MAP is premised on " a policy shift from tolerance to promotion" of mining for the interest of investors and does not depart from the export orientation of the industry.
· We demand promotion and protection of our biodiversity. Nowhere is this recognized in the MAP, yet which is more important: the profits of mining TNCs or the rich but threatened Philippine biodiversity that sustains life and is indeed life itself?
Even as there exists a woeful gap between declared protected areas and equally critical but unprotected conservation and biodiversity areas, the MAP indifferently claims concern for "rapidly expanding NIPAS (National Integrated Protected Areas System) areas." As such, MAP would now allow mining industry stakeholders to take part in committees identifying protected areas, opening the doors to a dilution of the NIPAS goals of conserving important biodiversity areas in order to give way to mineral development.
Genuine economic growth cannot be achieved at the expense of a degraded ecosystem and irreversible biodiversity loss. Given our country's rich but threatened biodiversity, it is more to the national interest to preserve this richness than to prioritize revenue generation through mining projects.
· We want environmentally destructive mining technologies stopped. MAP feigns sustainability by stating that it will ensure the adoption of "efficient technologies" through the judicious extraction and optimum utilization of mineral resources. On the other hand, it remains silent about the present conditions that environmentally-destructive technologies like open-pit or strip mining and submarine tailings disposal systems are prevalent mainly because of the extractive nature of the industry that is profit-driven and have low priority to the environment. · We demand the protection and advancement of the rights of the people. MAP threatens to further subvert people's rights in an undisguised attempt to shortcut procedures, bypass local government units critical of mining projects and undermine whatever little legal safeguards left regarding the social acceptability of such projects. The "harmonization" of conflicting provision of other laws such as NIPAS and Local Government Code towards the Mining Act and "simplification" of the issuance of Free and Prior Informed Consent is an obvious step to fast track the approval of projects and entry of transnational mining companies in the communities. It is all the more dangerous considering how people in mining communities are also often coerced with threats and actual physical harm, even death, when opposing destructive mining projects.
· We demand that environmental justice be pursued. MAP falls short of making past errant mining companies pay for their environmental crimes, and instead only intends to implement stop-gap measures on critical mine sites, while proposing economic incentives schemes for companies to rehabilitate closed down mines. Worse, even as it is only now that the government is trying to identify policy options regarding abandoned mines, MAP appears more concerned with the "redevelopment" of such mines rather than correcting the damages to the environment and injustice on the people that the mining operations have caused.
These are but some of main assertions that we make on the government's moves to draw up a Mineral Action Plan. While we assert our concerns over another clearly objectionable government policy paper, we vow as well to continue educating and mobilizing our people on the need to scrap the E.O 270 and the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 or R.A. 7942.
We reiterate our call to junk the Mineral Action Plan and for the executive government to uphold the Supreme Court decision, which ruled as unconstitutional Financial and/or Technical Assistance Agreements provision of the Mining Act of 1995.
Not In Our Name: Why We Refuse to Participate in a Consultation on the draft National Mineral Plan that Ignores the Realities and Rights of Local Peoples
Joint Statement of the DIOPIM Committee on Mining Issues (DCMI) and the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, Inc. – Kasama sa Kalikasan (LRC-KsK) Dipolog City
19 May 2004
Undersecretary Demetrio Ignacio of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) recently sent out written invitations to a number of NGO’s to a consultation on the draft Mining Action Plan on 20 May 2004. Among the recipients of the invitation are the DIOPIM Committee on Mining Issues (DMCI) and the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, Inc., co-convenors of the “Dapitan Initiative”, a Mindanao-led national campaign urging the government to scrap the Mining Act of 1995 and to heed the emerging solid people’s consensus for the government to prioritize food security, ecological health, and programs that are community-initiated and community–owned over large-scale commercial mining.
DCMI and LRC appreciate the gesture of the DENR in issuing the invitations to this consultation.
We cannot help but wonder, however, what the proponents of the consultation had in mind as the role of NGO’s and peoples’ movements in the activity. In the letter-invitation, the DENR says that the intention of the consultation is to “craft a set of action plans that reflect the needs of our people”.
Yet, we cannot help but note that the Action Plan
(1) centralizes critical decisions on the siting of commercial mining, not in the hands of local communities but in national and local government bodies;
(2) undercuts legal procedures for processing local community consent;
(3) defines” rapidly expanding NIPAS areas” and the concomitant “diminishing access for exploration and mining development” as an ISSUE or a CONCERN, rather than a positive development;
(4) revitalizes government plans to mobilize more funding for commercial mining and support services to commercial mining, other from public funds (national budget) and funds from foreign sources.
The Action Plan ignores the hundreds of actual conflict situations that are already causing much hardship and violence in various localities. It does not say, as an action point, that its Mines Adjudication Board, for instance, should immediately resolve community cases that have been languishing for years. It also does not say, as an action point, that the MGB will respect a community’s decision to withhold or withdraw its prior informed consent once it is given. Rather, the Action Plan’s contemplated action is to further shorten the period for registering local opposition and processing free and prior informed consent, thus further weakening not only the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples as an institution, but the hard-won substantive rights of local peoples.
We also note the following:
the Action Plan calls for the revision of the few existing government regulations that protect the right of the people to be heard and their right to free and prior informed consent. Under the Plan, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) will revamp the implementing rules of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act in order to make it easier and faster for mining companies to get the required Certification Precondition and local consent. In addition, the Plan calls for the DENR and the DILG to agree to set guidelines for the “endorsement of mining projects”.
the Plan calls for the amendment of procedures for identifying protected areas under the National Integrated Protected Areas System in order to guarantee mining companies and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau a seat or several seats in all committees that will identify areas for inclusion in the NIPAS System;
the Plan will devote money for developing radio programs, radio plugs and information campaigns, including holding regular “kapihans” to promote the “economic and social benefits of mining” and “the environmental safeguards in mining”;
the Plan calls for the “third party audits” in monitoring mining activities and for this purpose, the DENR says it will establish “local and foreign linkages” relative to mine auditing. We fear that instead of forcing salaried employees and technical staff to build up their capacities for conducting reliable and credible audits, we may end up depending on outside consultants who cannot bemade accountable for their findings. Besides, maintaining consultants, especially foreign consultants, require a lot of money. The public ends up paying double for the compensation of government employees who should be doing credible, reliable audits and monitoring, and the compensation of consultants;
the Plan calls for the identification of “no go” areas for mining, citing as possibilities protected areas, old growth forests, civil reservations, proclaimed watersheds, geological and historical heritage areas. The strategy for “stabilizing” decisions in biodiversity-critical areas is to identify a rational and science-based valuation too to determine the best and alternative uses of the areas”. We recall that the complaints of host communities about mercury poisoning and mysterious mining-related diseases go largely ignored by government officials. Their information is generally not regarded as “scientific” enough to merit the serious attention of officials; even then, when evidence of pollution is strong, mining companies usually escape liability by presenting volumes of studies by their highly paid, “scientific” consultants who attribute diseases and environmental degradation to everything else but the mining activity, including attributions to “God” (the classic force majeure or “Act of God” rationalization). The use of science is critical, indeed, but decisions on what the “best and alternative land uses” must be based not simply on what people with academic degrees say. It is time to shatter the myth that local peoples’ understandings are not “scientific” and that they should be regarded as experts as well on determinations affecting their livelihood, health and economic well being.
The plan calls for the “development of incentive scheme/s for companies implementing mine/site rehabilitation projects. The reality is that mining companies do not rehabilitate or implement effective preemptive measures and the lack of government monitoring of health and environmental impacts. In short, why is the government providing more incentives for companies to rehabilitate when the problem is not a lack of incentives but a simple case of non-compliance with legal obligations? Why give more incentives when the solution should lie in strict enforcement of accountability mechanisms? When incentives are offered, a company may or may not avail of the incentive. Rehabilitation and compliance with environmental, health and social safeguards should be a matter of strict accountability and enforcement, not incentive-based.
We feel that the consultation will not yield any substantial or significant gains for local peoples who are still struggling to assert their basic human rights, including the land and resource rights of indigenous peoples and the people’s rights to a healthy environment and to healthy bodies. The Action Plan, upon which the consultation is based, does not “reflect the actual needs of our people.”
We express our profound disappointment with the output of the DENR. So many consultations have been participated in by local communities and advocacy groups such as DCMI and LRC-KSK. We had hoped that somehow, our impassioned pleas for a shift in frameworks should have made a dent in government thinking about commercial mining.
The Action Plan disappoints, frustrates, and sows fear of what’s ahead for people opposed to commercial mining.
Dipolog City, 19 May 2004.
Rev. Fr. Albert Anthony K. Bael Chairperson DIOPIM Committee on Mining Issues (DCMI) Diocese of Dipolog, Prelature of Ipil Kasama sa Kalikasan Archdiosese of Ozamiz, Diocese of Pagadian, Diocese of Iligan, Prelature of St. Mary’s of Marawi
Atty. Francelyn G. Begonia Executive Director Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, Inc.- (LRC-KSK/Friends of the Earth-Philippines)