Aiyanas Ormond: October 18, 2008
Standing at the seashore looking out over the blue expanse towards the distant islands of Palawan, Tatay Putot scoops a handful of fine brown earth from the shallows. This is evidence, he says, of an environmental disaster that has already begun with the latest Philex Gold exploration here in south-western Negros. The Canadian mining company is only in the very beginning stages of its operations here, having sunk only 20 of up to 96 exploratory holes, but already the Bacuyangan river runs brown into the sea bearing silt from the mines and the earth stripped away from the mountaintops. The potential impact on the local people is concerning – the rice farmers of the fertile valley rely on the river water to irrigate their crops while the coastal communities rely on the sea for their livelihood.
We have accompanied Tatay Putot, an organic farmer and leader with the local farmer’s organization, to see first hand the impacts of the mining exploration on the coastal fisherfolk communities. A group of fisherfolk gather to meet with us outside a small house, just meters from the sea. They tell us that the catch is very bad this year, and point to the brown beach, clogged with fine silt as the cause. Joking with one of the mangingisda (fishermen) that last year he borrowed money from him but this year it will be the other way around. Everyone laughs in the usual Filipino way, but the fisherfolk are no longer laughing as they explain that their children are going hungry now because the catch is so little.
Across the highway and a little inland we visit with members of the irrigators association, small scale rice farmers who irrigate their fields from the Bacuyangan river. The association, representing all of the 100 or so households in the community has taken a clear position against the Philex mine. Based on previous experience in the region, they are certain that the chemicals and heavy metals involved in the mining process will end up in the river, and as farmers they know that what is in the water ends up in the rice.
Mountain Journey
At some point between fording the river, climbing a 15 foot shear rock face and trudging through bamboo thickets which cut at the our bare arms and faces, Martha turns to me, her face red and shirt soaked in sweat, and says “I can’t make it”. We are approaching the Philex mine by the ‘back door’ in an attempt to avoid the military and security. They have stopped previous fact-finding missions from reaching the mine site.
Martha does make it, and even little Billy survives the three hour hike with only a few tears and a short stint on my back. As we approach the drilling site we begin to see evidence of the erosion – areas where the mountain is stripped bare of its plentiful vegetation and the mud runs down into the lowland streams and creeks. The company has taken mandatory measures to try to mitigate the erosion, but from what we can see the sand-bagging and planted grasses are ineffectual against the combined force of gravity and the torrential rains that are almost daily at this time of year.
We need to clamber up another slippery steep incline to reach one of the actual drilling sites, but we manage to get there and the workers, reticent at first, become helpful and friendly as the local organizers begin talking with them. Billy gets right in there to have a look at the machinery.
The operation is impressive, especially since we have seen almost no real industrial equipment aside from the rare tractor since leaving the city. Yet here in the middle of the country side, where farmers still plough by carabao and the major means of mass transportation is the hable-hable (motorbike), we find this multi-million dollar piece of equipment. Martha and I talk about the implications of this. Like all the communities we’ve visited there is real need for capital here. Farmers need tractors and threshers and mills for their rice production, fisherfolk need access to refrigeration and both groups need roads and transportation to get their products to market. But there is virtually no money available from the government, corporations or mainstream NGOs for this kind of grassroots development. But if there is gold to be had... The history of mining in the Philippines indicates that the mining companies will come in for a few years with lots of capital, employ a few local people, and then disappear, leaving nothing but displacement, militarization and environmental destruction.
The workers here at the drilling site show us the 240 meter hole they have drilled into the side of the mountain, and a handsome young engineer makes Billy’s week by giving him a piece of volcanic stone. They also show us their safety equipment, which to us looks inadequate for this kind of heavy industrial operation. Local men are happy just to have a job in the prevailing context of poverty, where millions of Filipinos have to travel overseas for work. Unfortunately the lifespan of these mines is short. The nearby Philex Vista Allegre gold and copper mine operated for only about 5 years. It closed in 1997, just as the workers began to unionize (though this was only one factor in the closure of the mine). Retrenched workers from the previous mine are still in the courts trying to get compensation for a wage structure which paid locals significantly less than workers doing the same jobs who were brought in from other areas of the Philippines or abroad.
The Military and the Monetary
We were able to get the mining site without any interference from the military, however militarization in the community was evident. In addition to the Armed Forces of the Philippines detachment at the mine site, we also observed elements of the Philippine National Police’s Regional Mobile Group, an assault rifle carrying quasi-military group, in the community. And like in the other areas we’ve visited, organizers with the farmers organization, including our host Tatay Putot, have been branded as ‘communists’ and ‘rebels’ and face harassment and intimidation from the military.
This is a pattern in the Philippines where, as part of the policy of extrajudicial killings under the GMA regime, 21 environmental activists have been murdered in the last 7 years - 15 of them having been directly involved in anti-mining activist. The assassinations of activists is an just the most reprehensible aspect of a generalized campaign of fear waged against communities that resist the corporate profit-centred ‘development’ model being imposed by GMA and her political masters – the IMF, U.S. and big business in Canada, the U.S. and other rich countries.
Rather than asking why there is so much resistance to the large foreign owned mining operations in the country, the GMA regime is actively encouraging the mining companies to set up their own paramilitary groups saying, “the security of mining operations should be a common responsibility of mining firms, the government and local communities”.
In this region of Sipalay where the Philex exploration is happening the link between mining and militarization of the countryside is longstanding. From 1988 to 1992 under the Aquino regime a massive military and counter-insurgency program was mounted in the area as Operation Thunderbolt. The mountainous areas were virtually cleared of people under the conception that if you want to catch the fish (the guerrillas) you need to drain the pond (the communities that support them). The military, paramilitaries and anti-communist fanatic groups like the ‘greenan’ (known by their green uniforms) were mobilized in the area. At that time the military paid a bounty for the ears of supposed rebels, and groups like the greenan did not distinguish between real guerrillas and those who might sympathize with them or share common ideals.
The clearance of the population from the mountainous areas made possible the first large scale mining which had been impossible previously due to strength of people’s organization and the presence of the New People’s Army. Thus the military operation fulfilled the dual (and connected) purpose of suppressing people’s organized movement for meaningful social change, and creating conditions for profit for large multi-national mining corporations and their local “partners”, including the government.
The current situation looks very much like history repeating, with militarization, human rights abuses and a general climate of fear accompanying large scale open pit mining. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Philex claim itself is more than 4,000 hectares, but fully ¾ of Sipalay and a large part of the entire land-mass of Negros is covered by mining claims. If significant gold is found, the mining corporations are poised to strip this island bare.
Development or Plunder
Like so much of the ‘development’ under capitalist globalization, mining only seems to develop the bank accounts of the rich and leaves very little for the people. On our way back to Bacolod we stopped at the now closed Mercalor mine in San Jose. The huge open pit mine and the bare hillsides are still there but with no indication of any kind of sustained prosperity. Quite the opposite, there is strong sense of industrial depression here. Rusting buildings and shut gates, a good road with very not much traffic, poor farms and a town with little in the way of productive activity. This model of ‘development’, pushed by the international capitalist establishment, offers no way out from the poverty which is the legacy of more than 400 years of colonization, feudalism and foreign domination.
But this is after all, a very rich country. Aside from the fertility of the soil, the plentiful fish in the sea and the wealth of human capacity and creativity, there are vast mineral resources. If all these resources and capacities were to be harnessed for a program of development that put the welfare of the people first, that broke the cycle of foreign debt payments that suck up 70% of the national budget, and that shrugged off U.S. economic and military domination – so much would be possible. This is the hope of the national democratic struggle – an end the exploitation and plunder which has persisted under more than 400 years of colonization and foreign domination.
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