BY ROGER M. BALANZA
Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has laid down two conditions for him to allow mining in Davao City: modern technology that reduces to the barest minimum risk to people and environment and statutes that would ensure the poor would benefit from mining revenues.
Until such conditions are met, Davao City is mining-free, he said at the recent edition of the television show Gikan sa Masa Para sa Masa on ABS/CBN.
But Duterte also bared the underlying and primary reason why he is vehemently against mining at this point in time.
“Davao City’s mineral resources should be conserved for future generations of Dabawenyos,” he said.
They should be treated as a piggy bank of today’s children for their future, he said in the program hosted by lawyer Geraldine Tiu.
Duterte made the comment as a January 5 landslide in a gold mining settlement in Compostela Valley killed 36 people, with more than 40 people still missing.
Mining in Compostela Valley, also known as the Minerals Corridor of Mindanao, has helped the local economy but unregulated mining by smallscale and bigscale miners had led to hundreds of dead in tunnel cave-ins and landslides since gold was discovered in the province in the early 80s. Unstable peace and order and violence also added to the death tally.
Revenues from mining to increase funds for local government operations, and its attendant risk to people and the environment, may be the least that the Davao City needs today. Davao City is an economically viable corporate entity able to respond to public services with its annual revenue of nearly P5 billion. As a premier city in Mindanao, it is experiencing a surge in investments that could ensure a highly functional local government unit in the coming years.
Davao City’s hinterland districts of Marilog and Paquibato are said to be rich in deposits of gold and other minerals.
Foreign mining companies have expressed interest in exploration but found a solid wall in the local government’s anti-mining stance and heavy presence of the communist New Peoples Army (NPA) in these farflung districts. The NPA, the armed wing of the National Democratic Front (NDF) years ago publicly announced it would oppose any mining venture in Davao City.
Duterte said several years ago while he was the sitting mayor, an Australian mining company asked him to convince the NPA to allow the company to do exploration works in Paquibato.
He said he told the company that he is also not interested in having mining in the city.
Recently, Mayor Sara Duterte also has expressed aversion at mining operations in the city citing the attendant ills that go with mining—environmental pollution, unstable peace and order and social problems— that she said the local government wanted to avoid.
I am thanking my daughter for her position, said Duterte, the mayor’s father.
Duterte said present government policy on mining has not translated to economic benefits for the poor and workers in mining, and would like to see legislation that would ensure that mining companies share their revenues with the poor before he would change his own view on mining.
In the mining industry, the rich go richer, while the poor workers can hardly have three meals a day, he said.
Foreign mining companies come and then go away with the revenues leaving environmental devastation, with Filipinos getting only a pittance, he had earlier said.
He also said that national legislation should also be in place for foreign mining companies to answer to damages in case of disaster stemming out of their operation.
There is a surge in investment in the mining industry in the country today after the Arroyo government fully implemented the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, which allowed foreign capital in the mining industry.
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