On Mining

A friend asked me to write a speech for her Speech class last week. She's assigned to talk about mining. I had nothing to do so I accepted her request. And here's it. I know my purpose of writing this one is unclear, at least I managed to write few words. Some of my opinions may be lame. Sorry. :D

I’m here before you, not to tell you a story of a young princess kidnapped by a wicked witch and was eventually rescued by a young charismatic charming prince. This isn’t a fairytale. This is a story of dying mother who appeals for compassion from its sons and daughters. This is the tale of Mother Earth!

The young boy, we call Juan, is a dreamer! He dreams of highly industrialized and technologically advanced society. He calls it Utopia – a perfect and ideal state where everyone lives in harmony and everything is for the best. Then came foreigners giving light to his dream. They brought with them new language, new technology, and more importantly…hope! Urban areas have nothing to do with their purpose of coming. The rural areas are the point of interest – the land of indigenous people like Manobo, Subanon, among others. Then the start of their operations. They started to cut down the trees of our forests, mined whatever minerals are in our mountains, processed it and sold them in world market. Juan who thinks he’ll have more benefits than the foreigners got disappointed when his share was an insignificant fraction of the whole. When his land was left wounded while the operators of the mining companies got away with huge economic profits. When his people suffered from polluted river systems and barren lands, the companies got away of the blame. Juan sat at the riverside and wept, saying “I should have never allowed those monsters to ruin my land.”

This is the current horrible situation of the Philippines. Our forests have become bald and barren, our river systems have become muddy so as our coastal areas, our indigenous people have been displaced of their ancestral lands. The life-supporting system of our country is obviously under threat.

Recently, we hear of protests and signatures campaigns against mining in the Philippines, particularly in Palawan. We hear of environmentalists killed because of their opposition. We hear of indigenous people being intimidated by large mining companies and are forced to give up their land. Some of our IPs are brave enough to take up arms but at the end, they all died in vain. We read of sign-up campaigns in social networking sites like Facebook, encouraging its users to sign-up for a petition against mining operations here and there. We read of posters around campus inviting us to listen to a forum on mining but did we ever care? Did we ever talk about this issue with our friends? NO, right?

This isn’t much of an issue for us, the youth like me and you! If this is about Angel Locsin and Phil Younghusband break-up story, we’ll get more interested, right? If this is about K-Pop invasion in the Philippines, we’ll give more attention on it, right? I have come into realization that the plight of the indigenous people, the fight for the protection of our forests, are all alien to many of us! We don’t care… or many of us don’t care! But when the damages have reached the “irreversible” level, everyone will talk and stand up. This shouldn’t be the case. As early as possible, we should attempt to give resolutions to a possible future problems.

This is the primary reason why I stand here before you. It is my utmost gratitude to have this opportunity to talk about my opinions regarding the mining issue in the country which is undoubtedly getting the spotlight. Before I decided to write about this issue, I already have made my stand. I’d like to clarify that I’m not against all mining operations in the country. I cannot deny the fact that we gain economic benefits from these mining operations. What I abhor is the unsustainable mining activities of these mining companies granted with permits from the government! Their unclear and ineffective waste disposal and management are becoming a national problem. In the province of Surigao, I hear of disrupted coastal areas due to improper waste disposal. This certainly is the thing I’d dislike to hear.

We are often boxed when we talk about mining. We are forced to weigh things and decide which side is heavier and should be prioritized and which side is less important and should have the least attention? The two conflicting sides here are the economic benefits of mining and the environmental impacts of mining operations. I am not taking business-related courses and if you’ll ask of technical explanations, I am not the right person to ask to. Neither am I an Ecology or Forestry student who is well acquainted with things about environment. I am just a plain Filipino woman with compassion, with critical thinking, and with heart….And I say NO TO UNSUSTAINABLE MINING!

Our country is beset by too many problems – rampant poverty, political dynasty, national security and integrity, conflict with China over the scarborough shoal, name it and the poor Philippines has it. We cannot afford to have another problem just because we allowed these greedy foreign mining operators to mine our minerals and leaving the place unsuitable for living for the Indigenous peoples. We can stop the continuing environmental destruction in the country. It’s not late, it is never too late. STAND UP AGAINST ABUSIVE MINING OPERATIONS!

Thank you! :D c.r.d.