Mining in the Philippines - Concerns and Conflicts

of the companies proposing STD in the Philippines. 59 The FFT was disturbed by this apparent double
standard among companies claiming to operate to the highest international standards.
The Philippines has very high geo-hazard risks. 60 Typhoons, earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides
are common. The eruption of the Mt Mayon volcano during the fact-finding team’s visit served as a
timely reminder of this. The eruption displaced 43,000 people. Alarmingly, in the Philippines over
half of the active mining concessions and two-thirds of exploratory concessions are located in areas of
high seismic risk where earthquakes are considered likely. 61 The Marcopper disaster was blamed by
Placer Dome, the company operating the mine, on a minor earthquake. 62 The disaster in 1996,
involving the rupture of a cement plug in the base of a tailings dumping pit, spilled an estimated 4
million tons of tailings slurry into the Boac river. The spill affected 20,000 people and resulted in the
river being declared biologically dead.
Food and Water Security
Mining can be both a major consumer and a major polluter of water. According to the United States
Environmental Protection Agency, water contamination from mining poses one of the top three
ecological security threats in the world. 63
The communities that the fact-finding team met with and a range of organizations all voiced grave
concerns about the potential impact on the volume and quality of water. These concerns are
reflected in the documented experience of many communities downstream of existing mines.
International experience suggests that if pursued on the scale currently proposed by the Philippine
government, mining could weaken the food security of affected communities and even of the
country as a whole. Local communities feared that pollution and siltation of rivers may deplete
water sources, reducing rice production and fisheries.
The last national census estimated that the population will grow from its current level of 84 million
to over 150 million within 30 years. The crisis of water management and irrigation has been raised
by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) in the Philippine Medium Term
Development Plan 2004-2010. According to NEDA, ‘the management of watersheds has not been
properly given attention. This has led to shortages of water for irrigation, industrial and domestic
uses and is thus likely to negatively affect future development initiatives.’ 64
In the Philippines many mining and exploration concessions overlap watershed areas where
demand for water exceeds the available supply. Mining in these areas would therefore be likely to
compete with the needs of other users, including farmers and households, for scarce water. 65 Many
mining sites are located on mountains that act as watersheds for numerous rivers, potentially
compounding the threat.
While the DENR recognizes that ‘pollution of water sources such as rivers and lakes is evident in
many parts of the country’, there appears to be a disjunction between this assessment and its
recommendations on mining. In its mining plan the DENR states that ‘8.5 million hectares or 94.4
percent of mineralized areas [approximately 28 per cent of the total land area of the Philippines]
have yet to be developed’, without reference to the potential environmental damage. Those most
likely to be adversely affected will be the indigenous and local communities who rely on agriculture
and fishing for their livelihoods and food. In the long term, the entire economy and food security of
the Philippines will suffer. As the then Secretary of the DENR Heherson Alvares put it: ‘What does it
gain a nation to be short-sighted and merely think of money when an irreparable damage to the environment
will cost human lives, health, and livelihood capacity of our farmers and fisherfolk endangering the food
security of our people? 66 ’
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