Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP)

Indigenous peoples’ organization Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP) led a national protest today in commemoration of the 17th year promulgation of the Mining Act of 1995.

“The past 17 years has spelt the massive sellout of ancestral lands to transnational mining corporations, the destruction of the environment, and the plunder of our national patrimony,” Piya Macliing Malayao, KAMP spokesperson said.

KAMP describes the Mining Act of 1995 as one of the most disastrous developments in the Philippine economy. “The Mining Act is thoroughly disadvantageous to Filipinos, it was made specifically to please and attract foreign investment. As a result, we are left with nothing but a poisoned environment, an exploited people, and a gaping hole in the ground,” Malayao claimed.

The Philippine Mining Act of 1995 is criticized for allowing 100% ownership of non-Filipinos of prime mineral lands, among others. KAMP points out that other rights given to mining investors, such as water rights, timber rights, and easement rights completely violate the indigenous peoples’ rights to ancestral lands.

“More than 60% of all mining applications and operations today are located in ancestral domains. One could just imagine the deep turmoil caused by mining to indigenous communities nationwide,” Malayao said. Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company runs the first large-scale mine in the Philippines located in Mankayan, Benguet, ancestral lands of Igorot tribes in the Cordilleran province. The Lepanto mine is barraged with environmental and wage issues since it started in 1936. The expansion of the mines to adjacent provinces is now being widely opposed, KAMP says.

Financial and Technical Assistance Agreements (FTAAs) stipulated in the Mining Act was also first applied to ancestral lands in the quad-boundary of Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato, North Cotabato, and Sarangani, awarded to Western Mining Company. FTAAs allow mining companies to operate in large tracts of mineral lands with an extended tax holiday, in exchange of technology transfer.

Meanwhile, the Palace had been cooking up a new mining policy since early this year.

Frustrating anticipation, the Aquino administration failed to come up with a new mining policy by the end of February, citing protestations from the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines regarding tax increases.

“Aquino gives lesser regard to the widening and deepening hatred of Filipinos of large-scale and destructive mining than the favor of mining transnational corporations. However, he could no longer keep a blind eye over the wide-ranged attacks against the extractive industry, a matter that keeps him from issuing a new directive,” Malayao said. “But we have no hope that Aquino’s mining policy would be any different from previous administrations, as long as the Mining Act of 1995 is in place.”#