Environmental activist group, Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE), slammed the sudden lifting of the open-pit mining ban of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) of South Cotobato yesterday and called Governor Reynaldo Tamayo to veto the proposed amendments to the provincial Environmental Code urgently.
“Lifting the open-pit mine ban will allow mining projects to destroy life-giving watershed ecosystems within South Cotabato. The Tampakan mining project will destroy the Altayan-Taplan River ecosystems in the Quezon Mountain Range, while various coal mining projects are poised to ravage the Daguma Mt. Range,” said Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan PNE.
In the absence of anti-mining officials, eleven SP members, led by Glycel Mariano-Trabado, unanimously voted for the amendment of the provincial Environmental Code, which included lifting the ban on open-pit mining. The passing of the amendments was done despite Governor Tamayo’s recommendation to sustain the ban.
The Tampakan Copper-Gold Project (TCGP) is among the largest untapped copper-gold deposit in Asia, estimated to bring about Php295 billion to the coffers of the Marcos-Duterte regime. The developer of the TCGP is Sagittarius Mines Inc., which is chaired by Gibo Teodoro, a known Marcos-Arroyo-Duterte crony.
“We will be left with Marcos-legacy areas like the Marcopper open-pit mines, forever scarred and polluted, unfit for the flourishing of life,” Dulce lamented.
This is the latest reversal of a mining regulation spurred by the Duterte government’s controversial moves over recent years, including the nationwide lifting of the open-pit mining ban and Executive Order 130 last year. Critics see these developments as consistent with the environmentally destructive paradigm for the past 26 years since the passing of the Mining Act of 1995.
“We call on all pro-environment Filipinos to unite and defeat the pro-mining Duterte-Marcos alliance. We must challenge all those who said they were against lifting the open-pit mining ban to act on the moratorium on new mining projects,” Dulce ended.#
