Home ›

Green Groups Support Zambales Action Against Mining: Call for Moratorium on Mining

By atm.admin - Posted on May 5th, 2010


PRESS RELEASE 
May 5, 2010 
  
Green Groups Support Zambales Action Against Mining: Call for Moratorium on Mining 
  
Manila – Environmental groups here in Manila expressed their support to the people of Zambales expressing their opposition to large-scale mining in the province.  More than 3,000 people gathered at the Provincial Capitol in Iba, Zambales today, denouncing the entry of mining operations, and calling for the protection of the remaining forest covers and ancestral domains in the area. 
  
“The Zambalenos are crying loud against the aggressive entry or mining companies, such as Rusina Mining, Coto Mines, NiHao Mineral Resources International and DMCI Mining Corp.  We hope that this action sends a clear message to the candidates in Zambales, and they heed the peoples’ calls”, said Jaybee Garganera, National Coordinator of Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), a national campaign against large-scale mining in the Philippines. 
  
“We support the calls of the Zambalenos, and are one with them in demanding for a moratorium on destructive mining operations in the province,” he added.  ATM is a group of more than 80 organizations all over the country that are against the revitalization of the large-scale mining industry in the Philippines. 
  
Garganera stated that the mining projects in Zambales “poses direct and serious threats to the remaining forest covers, watersheds and ancestral domains of Aetas in Zambales”.  He added that Zambales is hosting at least twelve Mineral Processing Sharing Agreements or MPSAs, a form of service contract between the government and mining companies. “These mining projects will severely impact on the water source, agricultural lands and forest areas of Zambales”, he said.     
  
Garganera also charged the provincial government for actively supporting these mining projects, citing the case of Sitio Maporac, Brgy. New San Juan in the town of Cabangan.  “We are aware that the provincial government has tacitly backed destructive mining there, under the guise of granting several small-scale mining permits that are actually involved in large-scale mining operations”, he added.  He also lamented the fact that the opposition of Aetas, particularly from the Maporac Aeta Association (MAO), have landed on deaf ears, as tensions continue to rise in the locality, due to continued operations of mining inside the ancestral domains, without the consent of the indigenous peoples there. 
  
ATM is an advocacy group on environmental and human rights issues and people’s movement composed of more than eighty (80) organizations from mining-affected communities and civil society organizations nationwide. It is convened by HARIBON, Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center – Friends of the Earth Philippines (LRC/FOEI) and Philippine Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (PhilDHRRA). (30) 
  
  
For more information: 
Jaybee Garganera, ATM Coordinator, (0915) 315.37.19












Bookmark/Search this post with: 






 
 

 
Your rating: None











  


      

          

  
      
 Tagged: 

  

 



      
Post new comment

  
  

    



 
 




 
 
 
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.





 
 




 
 




 
 
 


   
 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 

    




  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
More information about formatting options


Image CAPTCHA

 
 
 
Copy the characters (respecting upper/lower case) from the image.