Kasibu to decide mining bid

Kasibu to decide mining bid
By Florante Solmerin, Northern Luzon Bureau
The Manila Times August 2, 2005
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/aug/02/yehey/prov/20050802pro9.html

KASIBU: The fate of the planned open-pit and block-caving mining operations in the mineral-rich Barangay Didipio by the Australia-owned Climax-Arimco Mining Corp. (CAMC) will be decided by the local government of Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya when members of the municipal board convenes during their regular session on August 8.
In a meeting with the Didipio council together with the officers and members of the Didipio Earth Savers Multipurpose Association (Desama) here, Mayor Romeo Tayaban of Kasibu sured the Didipio folks that majority of the members of the municipal board will reject CAMC’s mining bid.

The barangay council submitted a unanimous resolution rejecting mining and urging the members of the municipal board to reject the same the plan of CAMC to mine their place.

“Don’t be fooled by the black propaganda of promining advocates that the Sangguniang Bayan will give an endorsement to CAMC’s mining bid in Barangay Didipio. Majority of the Sangguniang Bayan members are against mining,” Tayaban told the officers and members of Desama in a meeting here.

Tayaban also scoffed at news reports “obviously guided by the company” and the continuous propaganda by a handful of people who were not his constituents that some members of the Sanggunian will throw their “yes vote” to the project.

“Even when I was still a vice mayor, I never recalled a single instance the Sangguniang Bayan had issued an endorsement to the mining project even if our mayor then was promining. And that position of the SB remains the same up to this time while I’m the incumbent mayor,” he said.

Environment Undersecretary Deinrado Dimalibot had pointed out that the government will not issue any mining tenement to any mining prospectors in a particular ancestral land unless it has the consent of the parties involved.

Dimalibot further stressed the importance of the provisions of the Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997 of whether or not a mining permit would be issued until and unless the involved parties, IP’s, were properly consulted.

CAMC, an Australia-owned mining firm, was eyeing to extract gold and copper in Didipio in mining operations in a 12 to 14 years period. The Ramos administration granted the company a Financial Technical Assistance Agreement in 1994, a year before the Mining Act of 1995, or Republic Act 7942, was enacted into law. The area to be affected covers 37,000 hectares and straddles in the Mamaparang mountain range in the boundaries of Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino.

However Mining Act’s mandatory 10 percent annual area relinquishment reduced the area to 21,465 hectares.

Climax has a surface mineral extraction area of 325 hectares in Didipio, portions of which was also found in Barangay Dingasan, Cabarroguis, Quirino.

Antonio Dincog, barangay chair of Didipio, together with his councilors and the officers and members of Desama, praised Tayaban’s steadfastness against large-scale mining which they said would only endanger the booming upland agriculture of their place particularly their citrus industry.

“We’ve been informed that our governor, Luisa Lloren Cuaresma, herself doesn’t want large-scale mining to operate here in the province. We really appreciate the position of the governor. However, we’re appealing to her to abolish the so-called Mine Rehabilitation Fund Committee [MRFC],” Dincog said.

The MRFC, formed in October last year, sets aside an initial amount of P5 million for the immediate compensation of the affected communities in Didipio once mining commence.

Cuaresma, during the first meeting of the regional development council early this year, told the body and the environment department to spare Nueva Vizcaya from large-scale mining.

The regional body had in the past repeatedly rejected CAMC’s mining bid in Kasibu.

The Catholic Bishops of Northern Luzon (CBNL) in May renewed their opposition against the government’s bid in revitalizing the Philippine mining industry and in a statement called upon the respective episcopal jurisdictions to vigorously fight large-scale mining “which endangers the strategic sources of livelihood of the present generation, the environment and mother earth’s future generations.”

The CBNL is composed of Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Dagupan-Lingayen; Archbishop Diosdado Talamayan of Tuguegarao City; Bishop Carlito Cenzon of Baguio City; Bishop Cornelio Wigwigan of Bontoc-Lagawe; Bishop Artemio Rillera of Bangued, Abra; Bishop Jesus Cabrera of Alaminos; Fr. Samuel Banayat, administrator of the of San Fernando, La Union; Bishop Sergio Utleg of Ilagan; Bishop Ramon Villena of Bayombong; Bishop Edmundo Abayan of Nueva Segovia; Bishop Ernesto Salgado of Laoag City and Bishop Prudencio Andaya of Tabuk.

Aussie mining firm deceiving people, says Vizcaya bishop

Aussie mining firm deceiving people, says Vizcaya bishop
By Florante Solmerin, Northern Luzon Bureau
The Manila Times June 20, 2005

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/jun/20/yehey/prov/20050620pro1.html

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya: The Australia-based Climax-Arimco Mining Corp. (CAMC) is allegedly deceiving the residents of at least 29 barangays in Kasibu town in this province to persuade them to endorse their mining project in mineral-rich Barangay Didipio, according to Bishop Ramon Villena of Bayombong.

“Unable to get the majority consent of the residents-opposed gold and copper project has the consent of the Kasibu people,” Villena said in an exclusive interview with The Manila Times.

The bishop admitted that seven barangays passed resolutions endorsing the gold and copper project, but he claimed that four of these barangays retracted their endorsement after they were informed of the consequences of the project.

Citing a study made by the Didipio Earth Savers Multipurpose Association (Desama) and the Diocesan Social Action Center, Villena said the two groups documented since 1997 numerous cases of deception committed by the mining proponent to win the endorsement of local communities.

“Foremost among these is that the company has been doing everything to show to the public that the Didipio council and majority of the residents support the project by showing an alleged resolution of the barangay council after the 2002 election and a resolution from the residents endorsing the project. These were purely deceptions committed against the Didipio people,” Villena said.

He said it turned out that the resolutions were penned by an organization called the Didipio Special Administrative Council, which CAMC created and which may have misrepresented the true sentiment of the residents. “Desama members won five seats in the June 2002 barangay elections including the barangay chair,” Villena said.

Desama presented resolutions of the town council denying endorsement for the project in November 2002 as well as the endorsement of the Regional Development Council, also in 2002. Both councils repeatedly rejected the company’s request for an endorsement.

The bishop disproved the company’s claim that barangays other than Didipio and Sitio Tubo, Dingasan in Cabarroguis, Quirino, will not be affected. “CAMC explored most of its FTAA area for gold and copper including the area of Malabing Valley, the booming citrus capital in the country.”

Villena said there’s no truth to the company’s claims that its project would bring economic relief and development to Kasibu, particularly the Didipio residents.

“It [CAMC] had once connived and deceived the Didipio council and later broke their promises for economic development. Many claim that a majority of the barangay council, before Dincog’s term, was under the payroll of the company. They donated a truck, supported a clinic, hired students for summer jobs but all these, I think, were designed to divide the Didipio people,” the bishop said.

Villena further said that the promises of employment for the Didipio people is a “farce” because the company needs skilled managers, engineers and workers to run the machinery. “Many of the Didipio residents do not possess these skills since majority of them are farmers.”

“We’re hoping that on Monday the summit will correct these deceptions made by CAMC against the interest of the Kasibu people. The Church hopes that the people will push for the banning of all forms of large-scale mining in Kasibu in particular and in Nueva Vizcaya in general,” he said.

The company was allowed to explore some 37,000 hectares in Mamparang mountains at the boundaries of Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino, but the area was reduced to about 21,000 hectares due to the annual area relinquishment.

The Ramos administration granted the company a financial technical assistance in 1994, a year before the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 was signed into law.

Former environment secretary Heherson Alvarez suspended the company’s exploration permit because affected Ifugao residents refused to endorse the project.

Recently, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources reiterated that any mining development project will not be allowed on the ancestral lands of indigenous people without the free and prior informed consent of the affected people.

Civic and local government leaders of Kasibu and Nueva Vizcaya are set to convene a mining summit today to decide whether to allow the project.

The summit was organized by the local government of Kasibu together with the Desama, a people’s organization based in Didipio where the proposed open-pit mining operation is located.

Antonio Dincog, chair of Barangay Didipio, said the summit will determine the town’s development priorities.