"For as long as the government agencies regulating the twin industries of
mass destruction are not cleansed of officials who lawyer, and act as fixers
and fiddlers of these industries, no amount of harping about “responsible”
mining and logging can be credible enough for us to risk being victimized
again by these industries..."
I would like to thank this
Committee, especially you, Madame Chair, for inviting me. I will deal on the
viewpoint of local communities, which are confronted by the logging and
mining issues. We have included mining, because with logging, they comprise
the twin industries of mass destruction, at least in
Samar. When it comes to these twins, the threats to Cultural
Communities and Local Communities largely differ not in description but in
degrees, so much so that probing these industries from the perspective of
the local communities has relevance to the Cultural Communities.
This position paper deals on
the Samarnon viewpoint on logging and mining in our island, hoping that in
your legislative work, you will be able to pick out what can be of national
application. We claim this to be a Samarnon viewpoint not just because we
come from Samar, but especially because this position is based on the
history and recent experiences of Samarnons and is aimed to promote the
welfare of Samarnons.
The basic premise of the
Samarnon viewpoint is our claim of stewardship rights over our forests, as a
matter of original even primordial right over anybody else’s claims of
“prior rights”. God gave us these forests as that part of His creation that
He entrusts to us. For those among us who are not that religiously inclined,
our claim is based on the fact that we are the ones who suffer when it is
abused, hence we should be the ones to manage it to ensure that we benefit
from it --- and sustainably too. As stewards, we are accountable to God and
the future generations of Samarnons.
The Samarnon viewpoint has
been shaped mainly by our experiences and history which likewise made
logging and mining the twin industries of mass destruction in Samar. The
massive floods of 1989 were lessons enough. Additionally, the residents of
Catubig N. Samar say that at the height of the logging operations of the San
Jose Timber Corporation (SJTC) and years thereafter, the streets of Catubig
were usually flooded by an overflowing Catubig River, after twenty-four
hours of heavy rains. Today, the same streets are not yet flooded even after
seven days of heavy rains. The Bagacay mines and how it made Taft River
biologically dead, is relatively well-known. What is not as publicized is
when for years people of nearby communities, and those going to Catbalogan,
Samar from the south were assaulted by pungent odors from the stockpile of
coal near the highway. What is also far from the public eye is the
disembowelment of the isolated island of Manicani by mining operations.
These are examples of how mining and logging became the twin industries of
mass destruction.
Looking through the prism of
the Samarnon viewpoint, here is how we view several DENR and SJTC
pronouncements when the issue on the logging moratorium got the attention of
the media, particularly the Philippine Daily Inquirer. We have filed a case
in court on this issue, hence please understand us Madame Chair for
excluding the legal issues.
1. That the SJTC will be undertaking “selective” and
“sustainable” logging
“The SJTC lawyer talks about
‘responsible and sustainable logging practices’, without elaborating. This
must be the “selective logging” Sen. Enrile described as “harvest(ing) trees
that are at least 70-cm in diameter”, as if it is as simple as cutting
plants in a garden.
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Cutting a tree
of that size destroys the smaller trees that it falls on. |
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Each log,
weighing at least three tons, is dragged through the forest floor by a
bulldozer for kilometers, hence, in the process, uprooting all the trees of
all sizes along the way. Multiply that process ten times a day, then by
3,840 working days in the sixteen years extension period for the SJTC, and
we can start to have a rough picture of how “responsible and sustainable”
this “selective logging” can be. |
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With such
destruction, timber is still “renewable”, but while SJTC got a quick buck
for the destruction --- the people of
Samar just have to wait for another twenty years for the forest to
recover.” |
2. That the logging operations will consist of merely
harvesting only those planted by San Jose Timber Corporation:
This makes sense when viewed
only from the time of the planting. But the fact is that before the planting
was the large scale cutting of trees in the manner described above. All that
the SJTC may have planted in
Samar are
therefore poor replacements to the logs it harvested and the smaller trees
it destroyed in the process. The SJTC therefore has no right to harvest what
it planted. In fact, it still has an obligation to plant more trees.
3. On the SJTC as a “company that has been true to its
covenant with the government and the people of
Samar Island”. WE would like to quote the same SIBF statement
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“That must
have been easy since that ‘government’ was, for the most part (1977 to 1986)
the Martial Law government with then Defense Minister Enrile as its chief
enforcer.” |
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“Was that
‘covenant… with the people of the island of Samar’ the cause or the effect
when then Defense Minister Enrile militarized Samar with, at one time
reaching, as many as 8 battalions? Did the terms of that ‘covenant’
include the atrocities and human rights violations committed by these
battalions? |
4. On the connection between the senate confirmation
hearings for the then Secretary Defensor’s appointment and the resuscitation
of SJTC’s supposed “rights”.
This is already the second
time that our forests were used as “balato” in the confirmation process of a
DENR Secretary. The first time around, we saw how the seemingly innocuous
support of then Vice President Guingona for the confirmation of Sec. Alvarez
got converted into a menacing Mineral Production Sharing Agreement for
Bauxite Resources Incorporated (BRI) owned by brother Benjamin Guingona.
This was granted by Sec. Alvarez on December 4, 2002 just before stepping
out of office. By the way, the rights under this MPSA have been sold
recently to the Pacific Aluminum Mining Philippines, thus confirming our
suspicion that the application for the MPSA was made for purely speculative
purposes.
When we saw Sen. Enrile
lawyering for Sec. Defensor’s confirmation, not a few “pustahan ng isang
kaha ng beer” were made that we will eventually be hearing about SJTC. But
even my friends who won in the pustahans were surprised that it happened
that fast. Because of this seeming pattern, many of us are worried that a
part of our forests would again be given as “balato” if the confirmation of
Sec. Angelo Reyes encounters confirmation problems. In this connection, we
would like to congratulate you Madame Chair for your recent appointment to
the Senate Commission on Appointments. We also appeal to you to redeem the
image of the Commission on Appointments among Samarnons by not allowing the
balato practice to happen again, especially when involving our forests.
Madame Chair, every time the
issue of mining or logging crops up, three concerns inevitably surface: 1)
the “advances in technology” and practices which, according to them, make
these industries less harmful to the environment; 2) the benefits to the
people, the validity and reliability of the claims and promises of the twin
industries, and 3) the relation between the government and these industries.
Having grappled with these concerns more than once as a people, an emerging
consensus is forming into pre-conditions before we can even consider mining
and logging.
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1. |
Sustainable and
environment-friendly technologies and practices in these industries
must have been demonstrated to be the standard practice in the
country.
The peddlers and fiddlers of
both industries habitually cite “advances in technology in other countries”
to assuage concerns about their environmental impact or sustainability. And
they think that is enough. There already exists a technology for going to
the moon --- but this does not mean we will believe the next Tom, Dick and
Harry nor, if this committee prefers a more local and recent flavor, the
next Juan, Mike or Angelo, who sells tickets to the moon.
We got burned already by
these industries not once, not even just twice, but more than thrice. We
therefore would rather see these advances routinely practiced in other parts
of the country first before we risk getting burned again. |
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2. |
The people of Samar,
especially those adversely affected, are guaranteed to be the main and not
just secondary beneficiaries in the operations of these industries.
The operative words are
“guaranteed” and “main…beneficiaries”. The Samarnons are the main victims
when things go wrong in the operations of these industries, hence they
should get the bigger slice of the benefits. The twin industries of mass
destruction always claim that the people of Samar will benefit during their
operations. So far, our history shows that the people of Samar got merely
the crumbs and left-overs. When they leave we are left with a fate worse
than the proverbial empty sacks, after all empty sacks don’t poison rivers,
as the Bagacay mines did, nor do they cause floods, as the SJTC logging
operations. We still have to get to the details as to what we can consider
as “guarantee”. But we can be sure that presently the assurances of the SJTC
and holders of MPSA rights are hollow.
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3. |
Full disclosure must be made
by the logging and mining companies, and a knockout rule must be enforced.
The right of the Cultural
Communities to a “free, prior, and informed consent” before any mining and
logging operations, is already recognized. But this will remain empty and
ineffective if there is no corresponding obligation on the part of the
logging and mining companies to make full disclosure. No one, much less the
cultural communities, can make informed decisions on the basis of
half-truths and misrepresentations.
To force the logging and
mining companies to make full disclosure, anyone found to be deliberately
committing misrepresentations and deceptive claims should be knocked out of
contention. This may sound tough. But full disclosure is the heart and
soul of being “responsible”. Deceivers and liars can never be considered
“responsible”, hence they have no place in a TRULY “responsible” mining and
logging program of any government.
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4. |
The governance in the
country must have reached a level wherein the government agencies regulating
these industries have been consistently proven to do their job, instead of lawyering and acting as patrons for these industries.
Changing adjectives before
mining and logging is not enough, it could even be worse when designed to
deceive. Before, it was “sustainable mining”. Later, it is “responsible
mining”. Now we are hearing “sustainable and responsible logging”. They
ain’t twins for nothin’!
In our region, the Mines and
Geosciences Bureau stooped to even as low as “unscrupulously lawyering for
the BRI, even to the extent of citing an unwanted Presidential Proclamation
and ignoring another popular and more recent Presidential Proclamation.
Worse, this MPSA was granted with the MGB acting like a petty fixer of the
BRI when it by-passed governing implementing rules and regulations”. (A
Petition to the DENR Secretary for the Cancellation of MPSAS in Samar
Island). By the way, the former was that of the Marcos Regime establishing
the Samar Bauxite Mineral Reservation, and the latter was Pres. Ramos’
Presidential Proclamation 744, declaring Samar’s remaining forests as Samar
Island Forest Reserve. Now, who in his or her right mind would trust that
the same MGB will regulate the mining industry?
As for logging, allow me
Madame Chair to quote from the “A Joint Pastoral Statement of the Bishops
and Clergy of Samar and Leyte” commenting on the DENR Order allowing SJTC to
operate again:
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“The issuance of the Order
came in the wake of a morally compromised situation: two public officials
sharing favors that seem mutually related to one another. A Senator of the
Republic helping to confirm the appointment of a DENR Secretary who himself
issues an Order allowing the Senator’s logging company to operate again
clearly does not at all inspire confidence in the absence of political
trade-off between powerful people at the expense of Samar Island and its
hapless people.” |
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For as long as the
government agencies regulating the twin industries of mass destruction are
not cleansed of officials who lawyer, and act as fixers and fiddlers of
these industries, no amount of harping about “responsible” mining and
logging can be credible enough for us to risk being victimized again by
these industries. Only when these regulatory bodies are beyond the influence
of the Secretaries of the DENR who spend time selling the country to the
world as a mining haven --- either by restructuring these to be independent
bodies, or putting them under people who have proven their ability to stand
up to their Secretary --- can we then trust them to protect us. As long as
TLAs and MPSAs acquired through clearly improper means remain, Responsible
Mining and Logging will always be highly suspect. Unless the peddlers of
“responsible” logging and mining --- be they DENR Secretaries, Speakers of
the House, or Presidents of the Republic --- do not show on-the-ground
results that they are addressing the above issues, then to us, they will be
just modern-day Pied Pipers trying to fiddle us to our perdition. |
To conclude, Madame Chair, I
would like to bring to you two messages from the Samarnons: the one we sent
when we held the islandwide caravan in 2003, and the other which we wanted
to send had we pushed through with our Anti-logging Islandwide Samar Caravan
2005. This was called off in exchange for the promise made by Sec. Defensor
to our Bishops that there will be no mining in
Samar:
The message in the 2003
Caravan was “YES TO SINP, NO TO MINING”
The message of this year’s
caravan would have been “PASS THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF THE SINP BILL, CANCEL
ALL MPSAs and TLAs in SAMAR”
Madam Chair and honorable
members of this Committee, we appeal to you to help us get the original
version of the SINP Bill passed in the Senate by co-sponsoring and
husbanding its speedy passage. Thank you.
