Intex Resources, a Norwegian mining company, is in the news again in the Philippines because a group of Mangyans are on hunger strike to protest the company’s nickel project in Mindoro.  (Please see the descrisption of the project in the company’s website http://www.intexresources.com/projects.cfm?path=)

Like the cause-oriented groups that denounce large-scale mining operations in the Philippines or anywhere else in the world, I am also against mining.

Why am I against mining when the government says that it will make our country rich? Well, is that true? How come, with all the gold and other mining operations going on around the country, the Philippines still lags behind in economic development? Where and what has mining brought us? Who got rich? Did the local residents who hosted the mining projects become wealthy? I don’t think so. Only the investors and the company officials who live far from the Philippines got wealthy. Oh, and probably the government officials who approved the mining projects. Did those companies truthfully declare the real value of the minerals that they extracted such that they paid the right taxes to our government? Probably not. Why? Those companies hire the experts, our government mostly have people in office who are not metallurgists. So, the mining companies can easily get away with much profit. I don’t have anything to prove this; I only have my mind to come up with suspicions which could be nearer to the truth than what our government passes on as press releases.

Why am I really, really against mining? A few years ago, I had the privilege of entering the premises of Marcopper Mining Corporation in Sta. Cruz, Marinduque together with a few companions. We were not allowed to take photos. What I saw got indelibly printed in my brain. Whole mountains were destroyed to extract copper to be sold abroad, the profits of which would go to the pockets of just a few people. Of course, Marcopper management built a school, a hospital, a club house, a church, and other facilities inside the mine site to cater to its employees and their dependents. Now, those facilities are closed (except the church) and rendered useless ever since the company’s operations have stopped because of the mine tailings spill.

I did not study metallurgy so I couldn’t make proper calculations as regards the amount of copper extracted from the site. Still, I couldn’t stop wondering: with all the mountains that they have leveled in that particular mine site, how much copper did they actually extract? To put it simply, if you have one dump truck full of mine tailings will you be able to have half a kilo of high grade copper? I don’t know but the environmental destruction that I saw was simply and utterly staggering! And to think that 1.6 MILLION cubic meters of mine tailings were already dumped into the Boac River which caused its death 13 years ago, 24 March 1996 to be exact. How much more are still left in the site? And it’s heartbreaking to know that up to now, the people of Marinduque have yet to receive compensation for the damage that was inflicted upon them by the mine tailings spill.

Maybe the Marcopper people thought that they can hide their dastardly act by not allowing visitors to take photos. Unfortunately for them, they can’t hide much because of the advances in technology. If you want to see what I saw, especially the big black toxic pond that is threatening to inundate the municipality of Boac should the dam that is holding it in burst, visit my flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/28794370@N03/2688681721/in/photostream/
where I’ve posted screencaps of satellite photos of the Marcopper mine site. The white zigzagging lines that emanate from the mine site are the paths that the mine tailings took, eventually killing Boac river. Satellites don’t lie, do they? And if you travel by bus to or from Marinduque, there are spots where the road runs parallel to Boac river. Sadly, the mine tailings are still there. No amount of dredging could possibly bring that river back to life.

And where are the owners of Marcopper Mining? They’re abroad, enjoying their millions of dollars. And the people of Marinduque, especially those directly hit by the mine tailings tragedy? Where are they? Still in Marinduque, poor and hardly making both ends meet, especially during these very hard times. They had money while the mines were in operation. Now that Marcopper has already shipped out, they’re probably back to where they were before, or even poorer. Yes, definitely poorer, because no one can ever resurrect a dead river that used to teem with life or bring back one’s health after ingesting toxins that flowed with the mine tailings.

Why don’t we serve fresh, hot, steaming mine tailings soup to our least popular President of the Republic and her pro-mining buddies so that they’ll get their dose of cyanide, arsenic, barite, calcite, fluorite, radioactive materials, mercury, sulfur, cadmium, hydrocarbons, sulfamic acid, sulfuric acid, activated carbon, calcium (uhm, healthy, eh), PAX (Potassium Amyl Xanthate), MIBC (Methyl Isobutyl Carbinol), and SEX (Sodium Ethyl Xanthate). Yummy!!! Or, if they want dessert, why not give them vanilla ice cream laced with fine, freshly ground mine tailings. Tailings can actually be as fine as iodized salt. They’ll never even know they’ve ingested it. At least, they’ll have a little taste of what the grossly affected Marinduque residents had. (Source: wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailings; inspiration for these yummy recipes are from the film, “Erin Brokovich.”)

Now, here comes Intex Resources aided by our own government. It’s only money that they see, nothing else, nothing more. So selfish. So corrupt. So greedy. I wonder which particular mountain ranges between Sablayan and Victoria they are planning to blast, bulldoze, and level to get nickel and cobalt. Which part are they planning to turn into another Marcopper? I’m sure our government officials and the owners of Intex Resources and other mining companies, can use some mine tailings soup to wake them up and shake their brains so that they’ll see the effects that their project has on the lives of PEOPLE.