Mining most destructive of all human endeavors

There was a time when the Philippines was covered with forests. Then
the loggers moved in and cut the trees and sold the lumber. The loggers
became very rich and they became congressmen, senators and Cabinet
members. But the forests were plundered and razed to the ground. The
mountains became bald and now when it rains, with no roots to hold the
soil together, mud and rocks roll and slide down the mountainsides and
bury the villages below. That is why, every time it rains, there are
landslides everywhere and people are buried alive.

And it is strange that the government is not alarmed and has not
done anything to mitigate the damage to the environment. Mark my words,
floods and landslides will become more frequent and more people will
die.

With the forests gone, the plunderers, mostly foreigners, are now
planning to dig up the mountains to extract ore. The Philippine
government is like the scion of a rich family who is addicted to drugs.
Having exhausted the family fortune on his habit, he is now down to
selling the family heirlooms and land to fuel his drug addiction.
Having exhausted the forests, the government is now opening up the
Philippines to foreign mining companies.

Mining is infinitely more destructive than logging. If you leave a
logged-over area untouched for years, new trees would grow and in time
there would be a new forest. But when you dig up the mountainside to
extract ore, the earth will not recover. The surface will remain for
ages like a bombed-out and razed battlefield.

But the greedy eyes of the government see only the ore underground,
which is estimated at present to have a value of $3 trillion. Imagine
how much even just 10 percent of that in commissions and kickbacks will
end up in the pockets of government officials.

Just one example: A foreign mining company has been given permission
to dig up coal from a very big area in Mindoro. Coal mining is usually
open pit mining. The mountainside is dug open to get the coal
underneath, like the carcass of a deer or some other animal whose
abdomen is ripped open by predators to get at the delicious internal
organs inside. Tunnels are no longer bored through the mountains and
neither is the ore taken out in rail cars. That is rarely done now. Too
expensive. The easier, faster and more profitable way is to open up the
mountainside with giant machines and scoop out the coal.

Coal mining is the most destructive of all forms of mining. Look at
the coal mine on Semirara island. Mining has ceased here a long time
ago but the mine is still a gaping open pit. It has not been covered
up; no trees or plants will grow there. It will forever be a dark and
shameful scar on the face of the earth.

Not only is coal mining destructive to the environment; when burned,
coal is the most polluting of all fuels. It is the biggest contributor
to global warming. So why are we going to destroy the environment, dig
up the coal and burn it, and contribute to global warming that would
melt the ice caps, raise the ocean levels and submerge many of our
islands, including large parts of Metro Manila?

Why did we enact the Biofuels Law and planted hectares and hectares
of land with jatropha in order to produce environmental-friendly fuel
from its seeds, as well as from coconut and sugar cane, if we are going
to dig up coal to be burned and pollute the air?

It is not only coal. The volume of metallic and non-metallic
minerals in the Philippines is estimated at 30.8 billion metric tons
worth, as stated earlier, $3 trillion. In the world, the Philippines is
third in gold, fourth in copper, fifth in nickel and sixth in chromite
in terms of mineral reserves. So you see how the heads of our officials
are ringing with the sound of gold coins.

But just like looking for the Treasure of Yamashita or King
Solomon’s Mines or the rich loot buried by pirates in lonely islands,
it is not that easy to find these fortunes. It means destroying the
environment in exchange for a few ounces of gold. Do you know that it
takes three tons of waste at a mine site to produce a single gold ring?
Do you know that 3,200 liters of water is required to grind one ton of
copper ore? Do you know that 7 to 10 percent of the world’s energy is
consumed by the mining industry? Do you know that 21 percent of the
global greenhouse emissions come from the mining and metals industry?

And yet Congress passed the Mining Act of 1995 (Republic Act 7942)
that encourages foreign carpetbaggers to come here and dig up the
countryside. And the Arroyo administration is inviting mining companies
to come here, dig up our minerals and ship them away.

Koreans are scraping the black sand off the northern beaches of Cagayan province and shipping it to South Korea.
The sand is rich in iron ore. But the Koreans do not even have a mining
permit. They are doing the mining using Filipino dummies. With the
beaches gone, salt water invaded the farms and killed the crops. When
the mayor and people of the town of Buguey, Cagayan, protested the
mining, the mayor was suspended by the governor; and the Department of
Interior and Local Government, headed by the same Ronaldo Puno now
asking the people to make him vice president of the nation, gave its
approval to the suspension.

Why are they doing this? Because the temptation to profit from the
ore-rich sand is too much. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins, and
it afflicts many of our officials.

Luckily, there is a non-government organization called the Alyansa
Tigil Mina. As its name suggests, it wants a stop to mining. Minerals
are better kept in the ground reserved for future use, the same way the
United States is not mining its oil fields in Alaska, reserving them
for the day the OPEC oil fields run dry.

We should do the same thing for our minerals.