ENVIRONMENTAL activist group Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment denounces Malacanang and DENR’s recent approval of the Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) of Sagittarius Mines, Inc. for its Tampakan copper-gold mining project in South Cotabato.
“This is a dastardly act and should be condemned. How can you give permit to a mining company which project is already causing massive community displacement and enormous environmental damage? The people of Mindanao have strongly opposed the mining project for more than two decades; there is a provincial government ban on open-pit mining and an on-going pangayaw (tribal war) by the indigenous people (IP) B’laan against the project. Is the Aquino government not convinced enough that this foreign mining project is unwelcome?”, said Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan PNE.
DENR Secretary Ramon Paje issued the ECC to the SMI project upon the recommendation of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB). The ECC granted was subjected to certain conditions for SMI to fulfill such as social acceptability, protection of the rights of IP, resolution of land conflicts, and assumption of ‘continuing liability’.
“This is a brainless decision. It seems that President Aquino values the interest of foreign miners more than the lives and safety of our people and the pristine environment in Mindanao. The Aquino government’s approval of the project will surely encourage the people to resist more in different ways. This will only add fire to the volatile situation in the mining-affected areas,” Bautista added.
Tampakan is also the site of the B’laan people’s declaration of war against SMI-Xstrata and the company’s security forces. The mining project threatens to displace more than 30,000 B’laans in the mountain ranges of Saranggani, Davao del Sur and South Cotabato provinces.
“With this approval, the government as always will increase the military forces and intensify militarization in the mining-affected areas to dissuade the people in opposing the project. This will definitely result in more violence and increasing human rights violations,” Bautista explained.
Last October 18, 2012, Juvy Capion, wife of anti-mining tribal leader Daguil, and her two minor sons were killed by the military. Recently a B’laan tribal warrior was also killed in a military operation last month. Several anti-mining activists were also assassinated because of their opposition to the project, one of which is Eliezer Billanes in March 2009.