Is money all that matters in mining?

Exactly four months after the killing of Juvy Capion and her two children in what is now usually referred to as the Tampakan massacre, the Aquino administration, through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, issued an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) to Sagittarius Mining Inc.-Xstrata (SMI-Xstrata). Touted as the biggest copper-gold mining project in the world with a $5.9-billion investment that is likened to the 30 pieces of silver in the loot bag of Judas Iscariot, SMI-Xstrata will resume operation on a land area  in Southern Mindanao, which is almost 10,000 hectares.

This ECC issuance to SMI-

Xstrata tells us clearly who benefits from existing mining policies and laws. The issuance was supported by the Department of Justice which asserted the supremacy of national laws over local regulations. This action betrays the very values of the indigenous peoples who are defending their land and the sanctity of their ancestral domain. Some of them have lost their lives while resisting corporate aggression disguised as “development.” Likewise the opinions and consequent actions of the  DOJ and DENR dismiss and belittle the will of  local officials and the people at the communities who continue to demonstrate concern for their common wellbeing and the environment.

The ECC is an utter betrayal of our patrimony and a sellout of our natural wealth. The resources of the natural world, of mountains, of forests, of people are invaluable. The ECC is but a free “legal ticket” given to allow the plunder of our natural resources by capitalists and by a market-driven economy.

When laws, policies and a system operate according to the standard of money and profit, the natural world and the people, especially the most vulnerable, suffer. A profit-driven economy that never gives up greed disrespects present and future generations and disregards their wellbeing.

Hardly three months have passed since the devastation brought about by Typhoon “Pablo,” but the Aquino administration is already keen in guaranteeing the full operation of mining corporations notwithstanding the clamor of the Mindanaoans for a stop to extractive economies, mining and logging included, for the restoration of the natural order of the land and for the urgent prioritization of the peoples’ lives, livelihood and welfare.

We denounce the Aquino administration’s recent action of  favoring a giant corporation at the expense of an indigenous group of people, Mother Nature and the generations to come. The ECC is a clear act of servility to a foreign interest and it is a certificate that stamps death on human lives in communities rich in natural resources. Its issuance is a sin in itself as it is an instrument that paves the way for the destruction of ecological relationships between nature and people, between the generations of today and tomorrow and the environment.

—JOSE ARNEL AGUILAR,

coordinator,

Stewards of Creation,

stewardsofcreation2011@

gmail.com