OneWorld.net (U.S.)

WASHINGTON, Feb 11 (OneWorld.net) - A coalition of Filipino organizations is warning that proposed mining operations will "wreak havoc" by destroying natural habitats, uprooting indigenous peoples, and threatening rice production and local fisheries on several islands.

• Mining threatens to take land away from agricultural production -- an important source of livelihood for indigenous peoples of the Philippines. © treesftf (flickr)"Once self-sufficient in rice, the Phiippines is now the world's biggest importer and, with world rice prices tripling this year, it has to pay record prices," said UK MP Clare Short in the Working Group on Mining in the Philippines' "Mining or Food" report [pdf]. "In a country where two-thirds of the population live on only $2 a day, this means that more Filipino families are being forced into poverty. The problem is rooted in the failure of the Philippine Government to maintain the health of its agricultural sector and to conserve vital natural resources, such as tropical forests and water, which contribute to national rice output. The loss of watersheds, for example, has a direct impact on the water supply for irrigation that is so vital for rice farmers. Yet, the Government seems to regard forests purely as a source of timber and as potential areas for mining."

• "The whole archipelago, 7,107 islands, has been offered for exploration and mining," said Father Frank Nally, a human rights activist and former priest and missionary, who was part of the Working Group's fact-finding delegation to the Philippines. He sat down with the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong to discuss what he saw on that trip and the negative effects mining will have on the Philippines:

   

PHILIPPINES: Mining or Food?

From: Asian Human Rights Commission

February 9, 2009

On February 5, 2009, Fr. Frank Nally, former Columban priest missionary in the Phillippines and human Rights activist came to Hong Kong to discuss the content of a new report showing the intimate connection between mining and food production. Fr. Frank's expertise draws from his experience as a member of the "Working Group" on Mining in the Philippines. The report is supported by the office of Clare Short MP who is involved in the Westminster launch of the above mentioned report. The report is authored by Robert Goodland and Clive Wicks, as well as two United Kingdom bishops, Bishop John Arnold, Auxilliary Bishop in the Diocese of Westminster and Bishop Michael Doe, General Secretary of USPG: Anglicans in World Mission, who stand in solidarity with the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines in their opposition to destructive mining in their country.

In February 2008 the working group on mining came to the Philippines, and documented six actual and proposed mining locations on the islands of Mindoro and Mindanao. They warned that the large-scale mining proposed for the Philippines threatens to wreak havoc, compounding a legacy of deforestation and habitat destruction. Evidence is provided to show that the extraction process damages food production, particularly rice, and imperils fisheries. The Philippines already relies on rice imports because of the decline in its domestic production.

The report calls for a number of things, to name a few: a national moratorium on mining; Prioritization of Food production; uphold the Right to Food and stop Human Rights abuses; Stabilize livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples through reforestation; and a rejection of the Mining Act 1995 which opened the country up to foreign mining companies, to be revoked.

Unless the problem is immediately addressed and the more urgent of the recommendations carried out, the threat of real hunger becomes quite immediate and real. In fact so many of the poor, have begun suffering.

Fr. Frank's short interview underscores the concern of a priest and foreigner who a number of times unabashedly asked, "With mining what happens to the "Pearl" of the orient? Don't we now see how the Pearl of the Orient is now imperiled?

The interview can be viewed on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7lza-rVu9k

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