‘Environment ball’ in Du30’s hands

This is in response to the call of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP) and its partners to observe due process, after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources issued an order suspending five mining operations and closing down 23 others (“Chamber of Mines questions gov’t audit,” News, 2/3/17).

There have been appeals from the mining industry to stop the order on the 28 mining operations which the DENR has deemed destructive after an audit that started last year.

It is understandable that the chamber and members of the business sector in the Cabinet, such as the Department of Finance, move to protect Big Business interest by siding with the extractive industry.

The Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc. (PMPI), a social development network of environment and rights groups, believes that the only way to change the DENR’s decision is to force Environment Secretary Gina Lopez to change her lens: to look at all extracted minerals as a means to boost the earnings and profits of mining companies and to supply the mineral needs of other developed nations, instead of looking at the destroyed biodiversity and damaged watersheds.

While the miners call for their version of “due process,” we speak but one word: JUSTICE.

• Justice for biodiversity irreparably damaged: the destruction and devastation in many provinces have been so vast, such that a great number of species of wildlife in these areas have been wiped out forever.

• Justice for all communities who have lost their ancestral domain and their heritage in exchange for money they will never see or, worse, they will never be able to drink or eat.

• Justice for dead indigenous peoples and destroyed communities harassed and violated by armed groups, for protesting and defending their watersheds and homes from the destructive mining industry.

• Justice for our people who will never see mountains or forests again in places where these have been transformed into flatlands and gaping pits, claimed to have been “rehabilitated” by the mining companies.

PMPI lauds Secretary Lopez for taking a stand and for standing on behalf of all the communities made host to mining operations, longing to see a glimpse of justice. We appeal to President Duterte to do the same. He himself has seen the destruction caused by mining operations in his very home. For now, his is the decision whether or not we remain slaves in our own land, pretending to uphold “due process” that does not benefit the poor and vulnerable communities and their home environment.

JEN MOLING, project officer, Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc., Barangay South Triangle,  Quezon Avenue, Quezon City