A YEAR AFTER his former Environment Secretary Gina Lopez was rejected by the powerful Commission on Appointments (CA), President Rodrigo Duterte said he suspects “conspiracy” behind her removal.
“When Madam Gina was removed by the Commission on Appointments. It was – maybe because she became very strong against the business in mining industry. I think there was a conspiracy to remove her. And they did,” Duterte said in his speech during the recent 31st founding anniversary celebration of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Quezon City.
“Well anyway, the rest is history. She was doing well. She was going against moneyed people and she was against the destruction of her native land,” he added.
Duterte described Lopez as passionate “in expressing your anger and your desire to save our country, the native land”.
During her term as DENR chief, Lopez drew the ire of the mining industry when she ordered the closure of over-mining sites that affect the water sheds and threatened to ban open-pit mining in the country.
In his speech, Duterte has reiterated his plan to ban open-pit mining which is “really destroying the land”.
“So I’d like to reiterate to you again what I said during the last meeting in the Cabinet that there will be a time, I still have time left, and that I will have to ban open-pit mining. I will destroy it,” Duterte said.
He told incumbent Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu that “there has to be a time that we have to decide just to tell them frankly”.
The President said they can find other sources of the P70 billion which the country gets from the mining industry. “But open-pit mining is really destroying the land. It’s like a water basin. It catches the water. Loosens the soil. And every now and then, you have this landslide,” Duterte said.
He said the poor Filipino people living near the open-pit mining are helpless. “The mining people know that I will really stop it. Maybe they’d try to revive it at some other time, but it’s not really my concern anymore. I’ll just do what I have to do during my time,” the President said.
Open-Pit Mining
In Mindanao, indigenous Subanen people, including the Catholic Church and other religious denominations have previously opposed the gold mining operation of the TVI Resource Development (Phils.) Inc. It had operated an open-pit mine in Siocon town in Zamboanga del Norte province and has now moved on to Bayog town in the neighboring province of Zamboanga del Sur.
In Tawi-Tawi province, nickel mining activities have destroyed the environment in Tumbagaan Island in Languyan town. In 2016, the Regional Legislative Assembly in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to which Tawi-Tawi belongs, asked the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to issue an order stopping all destructive mining activities in the region.
Assemblyman Hanibal Tulawie, the chairman of the Committee on Environment and Ecology, said a resolution was passed asking the DENR-ARMM to immediately issue a “cease-and-desist” order on all mining companies operating in Tawi-Tawi, Basilan, Sulu, Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao provinces.
Tulawie said he had received numerous complaints from the public and environmentalists who are opposed to destructive mining methods.
“In response to President Rodrigo Duterte’s call and the growing complaints of residents, landowners including indigenous people and different nongovernmental organizations against the destruction of forest lands in the area, the Regional Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has asked Regional Secretary Kahal Q. Kedtag, of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources [DENR] to issue a cease-and-desist order to all mining firms and operators within the territorial jurisdiction of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao,” the resolution read.
“These operators (mining firms) are not environment-friendly and do not practice their corporate social responsibility to the affected areas but they are contributing destruction and degradation of our forest lands within the areas of ARMM and in gross violations of Republic Act 7942 (Philippine Mining Act of 1995) and Republic Act 9054 (strengthening and expanding the ARMM Organic Act), as these complainants that include residents, landowners including indigenous people in the affected areas are not properly compensated,” it said.
Photos of nickel mining operations in Tumbagaan Island posted on Facebook showed huge trucks and barges hauling off red soil, which is allegedly being shipped to China where it is processed. Reports indicate that Tumbagaan Island is totally devastated because of mining explorations and the ongoing nickel mining activities in Languyan municipality and Panglima Sugala.
Copies of the resolution were given to Lopez and House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez. Lopez, who had ordered an audit of all mining firms in the country, did not have the chance to inspect the nickel mining operations in Tawi-Tawi. And Cimatu, up to now, has not visited Tumbagaan Island. (Mindanao Examiner. With a report from Jelly Musico)
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