Why is DENR not shutting down unregulated and illegal mines?

If the DENR chief under the direction of the President can shut down Boracay, then why can’t this Administration shut down unregulated and illegal mines?

Mining destroys the environment. Any person who says that mining is good for the country is a fool. Only those who make money out of it are those who fight to protect the industry.

Haven’t we learned from the: Laobaidong colliery disaster in Datong, China (1960) estimated to have 682 deaths due to a gas explosion; Coalbrook colliery disaster in Clydesdale, South Africa (1960) with 435 deaths; the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine disaster in Fukuoka, Japan (1963) with 458 deaths due to a gas explosion; the Wankie Coal Mine disaster in Hwange, Zimbabwe (1972) causing 426 deaths due to suffocation; Chasnala coal mine disaster in Dhanbad, India (1975) causing 372 deaths of miners due to drowning.

Most recently, in 2005, two hundred thirty-two miners died in a coal shaft explosion in Fuxin coal-mining region in southwestern China. In 2007, ninety were killed in post-Soviet Ukraine during a methane blast in a coal mine near the eastern city of Donetsk. In 2012, sixty people died at a gold mine in northeast Congo due to a landslide. In 2013, eighty-three workers were buried by a massive landslide at a gold mining site in Tibet.

Drea Knufken who wrote, “The World’s Worst Environmental Disasters Caused by Companies” reported that: 50,000 residents live in 120 villages, along 500 square miles of Ok Tedi River in Papua New Guinea. A mining company named after the river–Ok Tedi River Mining, Ltd. – has forever altered their way of life. Ok Tedi River mining has been dumping about 90 million tons of waste per year into the river. Australia’s BHP, 52% one-time owner of Ok Tedi Mine, drummed up an ad campaign declaring the waste to be “virtually identical” to natural sediment. Four years later, BHP released a statement “regretting” the comparison. The residents rejected their apology, sued BHP and won $28.6 million. In 1999, BHP dissolved their ownership in Ok Tedi Mining, admitting that they were not compatible with BHP’s environmental values.

In another case she wrote: 450 miles from Perth Australia lies the 14,500-resident town of Esperance. Outside of town, a mining company named Magellan Metals extracts, removes and transports lead. Magellan is required to transport lead within strict guidelines, so that nobody inhales or ingests it. The West Australian Government admits to knowing two years prior to the mine’s opening that it failed to properly load and transport lead through Esperance. It took the death of 4,000 birds, tainted drinking water, and off-the-charts blood levels of lead in local residents to convene an inquiry.

Michael J. McKinley wrote in his “Disasters: Environmental Mining Accidents,” that Summitville Mine in Colorado that gold was mined from 1870 until 1992.
According to McKinley, “broken pump lines and a French drain beneath the leach pad caused cyanide-contaminated solutions to be released into the local watershed; several waste rock piles at the mine reacted with rain and snowmelt to form acidic waters that flowed into area streams.”

He also wrote about the Iron Mountain Mine in California, where mining for copper, gold, silver, and zinc began in 1879 and continued until 1963 using underground and open-pit methods. He reported that: The site contains inactive mines and numerous waste piles from which harmful quantities of untreated acidic, metal-rich waters were discharged. Mining operations fractured the mountain, changing the hydrology and exposing the mineral deposit to oxygen and water, which resulted in intense acid mine drainage into nearby creeks and waterways. These caused numerous fish kills and posed a health risk to the area drinking water.

We shouldn’t forget the disastrous effects mining has to the ecosystems, wildlife and human populations not to mention climate change. I don’t understand why the government has not made an aggressive stand on this unfathomable environmental destruction.

If the government doesn’t take action, the local folk should learn to protect their environment by speaking up to protect their rights and to preserve their environment. A silent community will allow all the corrupt officials to sign contracts and memorandum of agreement with mining contractors which will be clearly fatal to the town, the province and to the country.

How can we ever forget that worst mining disasters in Marcopper, Marinduque and in Philex’s Padcal Mines in Benguet, where thousands of Igorots in the Mountain Province and local fishermen in Calancan Bay were killed and where many babies were allegedly born deformed along the Marinduque River.

Wasn’t the President at some point angered by mining issues when he visited Benguet where dozens perished in landslides near mining areas? Didn’t he expressed the thought of “closing” the country’s mining industry. Didn’t DENR Secretary Cimatu suspend small-scale operations in the Cordillera Administrative Region after the deaths of miners who died due to a landslide at the height of the typhoon? So, what happened? Why only react after something bad has happened? Other regions are suffering from the threats of mining. Local officials are playing dumb as usual.

Abden M. Balde Jr., commissioner in the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino representing the Bicol language cries foul to the work of Minekraft Resources Corp. to mine the limestone rich areas in Camalig, Albay. Apparently, the natural contour of the land may drive flood water from Camalig to Jovellar affecting nearby towns. This sounds similar to the problems in towns of Zambales where mining is rampant.

The proposal to mine limestone in the area was strongly opposed by Nini Ravanilla, regional director of the Department of Tourism in Bicol, because it would destroy the tourist destinations found in 8 barangays that will be affected by the mine. She said, “Our agency vehemently opposes Minekraft Resources Corporation’s application for exploration as not only the environmental impact of mining has a detrimental effect on the currently thriving natural and environmental tourism products of Camalig. It will also place into wastage almost half a billion pesos in investments made by the government in improving access and connectivity, and in tourism product development.”

Balde said, “In a country like the Philippines where technology and availability of equipment are lagging behind and all we have are the mine sites, and politicians and local government who are generally corrupt, the foreign miners that we attract are those who are apt to simply rape our land for money. Why go to more expensive, clean operations when they could bribe their way to maximize profits?”

These foreign financed miners, in cahoots with corrupt local officials, start small and look innocent. They will apply for 20 to 30 years concessions and start clean operations. Later, they will apply for “expansions” and creep their way to the rich areas, and to hell if these are protected, or cultural, or sacred lands. They know that in our rural areas money talks.

On July 2018, DENR Secretary Cimatu lifted the ban on accepting, processing and approving applications for exploration permits. That was done to attract foreign direct investments to the Philippines. Yes, allowing new mining development in the country. Sanamagan!

In desperate times like this, it helps to recall what Mahatma Ghandi once wrote: To me political power is not an end but one of the means of enabling people to better their condition in every department of life. Political power means capacity to regulate national life through national representatives.

I truly hope and pray that one day our leaders (both in the public and private sectors) will wake up to save the country and not just themselves.