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Surigao villagers oppose mining ops, sign manifesto

By atm.admin - Posted on August 19th, 2010

Surigao villagers oppose mining ops, sign manifesto
Monday, August 16, 2010 07:53:31 PM

SURIGAO DEL SUR, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Aug. 16, 2010) – More than 3,000 villagers in the town of Cantilan have signed a petition opposing the entry of mining operations of Marc ventures Mining Development Corporation in the southern Philippine province of Surigao del Sur.

The signing coincided with the town’s fiesta celebration as locals expressed opposition to the mining operations. The fiesta was also used for the launching of the Panalipdan Tubig Kinabuhi (Drive for Citizens’ Action to Stop Mining Operations within the Critical Watershed).

Baywatch Foundation President and Hermana Mayor Emma Hotchkiss explained that the petition signing was to preserve the watershed area of Cantilan, under Presidential Proclamation 1747, signed by then President Gloria Arroyo.

“We are not only celebrating our town fiesta, we are also asserting our right to a sound environment and ensuring that the next generation of Cantilanos can enjoy the benefits of our rich natural resources,” Hotchkiss said.

The proclamation of protecting the critical watershed and forest reserve was signed by Arroyo on March 23, 2009, and covers 43,601 hectares, encompassing the towns of Cantilan and Madrid in Surigao del Sur and three other towns in Agusan del Norte.

Local Mayor Genito Guardo also stood firm on his earlier decision to deny issuing a business permit to MMDC, citing alleged irregularities in the documents submitted by the mining company.

“The dates of the mining contract and the incorporation of the company do not jibe, leading us to suspect that there was not enough diligence and lack of transparency in the application,” he said. “We will not allow our natural resources to be destroyed, especially if the transaction is clearly riddled with irregularities.” (Farah Sevilla)

http://www.mindanaoexaminer.com/news.php?news_id=20100816075331

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it saddened me to hear that

Submitted by mayi (not verified) on Tue, 09/21/2010 - 07:37.

it saddened me to hear that the greed of this private corporations and so infected politicians has come to our beloved land and is starting to destroy not only our environment but also the cultures of indigenous groups in our mountains.
i remember when i was in high school about 18years ago, i was also invited to represent the youth to protest against a mining corporation when they were applying. i was young and naive to think that we stopped them but now i know they just stalled. they planned, looked for a way how and now they are here again.
thank you for all of you who care, for the courage... may God protect everyone. More power!

Pro ATM

Submitted by Eagle's eye (not verified) on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 11:17.

I really appreciate the organizer of ATM, i'm now currently employed at mining company, but my employment doesnt mean i am sold out to the mining industry...

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COMMENT RULES:

Hi everyone,

I'm the national coordinator of Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), the owner of this site.

We will always respect views and opinions posted on this site, as much as we encourage open discussion and intelligent debate on the issue of mining. ATM has its stand on this issue very clearly, and we welcome the comments from those who do not agree with us.

However, we have observed that in the past few days, this forum has gone way beyond acceptable behavior of netiquette.

I will request and strongly encourage all posters to at least follow the following rules:

1. Be civil. Basic courtesy and privacy norms should be practised by posters in this forum. Make your mom at least proud by showing you still remember to be polite, even if you're not required to say "po" or "opo" in every post you make. We wouldn't mind that either, if you do so. Then again, I am assuming here that you're already an adult.

2. Personal attacks will not be tolerated. This also applies to flaming. Just in case you don't know what flaming is, its deliberately insulting or personally ranting against a poster (or a thread) simply because you are losing the arguments.

3. Avoid being anonymous. Since you have enough time to post long comments, you would at least have a few seconds to type even an alias. You also help people conclude that you are not a paid hack from a PR firm by Intex (or any other mining company)

4. Do not shout in the forums. Do not use ALL CAPS in your posts. A single exclamation point should also suffice.

We will observe the forum in the next few days. Should these rules be disregarded, we will transform this into a minimally-moderated forum. We hope we will avoid the situation that we will decide to make this a closely and strictly moderated forum. We value everyone's insights so much.

We'll check up again on this new rules after a short while. Of course, we expect the Intex ECC to be revoked in a few days. In this case, I suspect that the "excitement" in this thread would have died down.

Jaybee Garganera
National Coordinator
ATM
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