Christmas Time

FILIPINO HOUSEHOLD HELP CONTRIBUTE MORE TO ECONOMY THAN MINING

The labors of Filipino household help in the country and abroad contribute more to the economy than mineral extraction, says research group IBON. This underscores how the mining industry’s contribution to the economy should not only be in terms of the value of minerals produced, but also how these should be used to develop Filipino industry. 
  
While stressing that labor export and low-paying jobs manifest severe jobs scarcity in the country, IBON said that ironically, household help contributes more to the economy than mining — highlighting how problematic the export-oriented and liberal mining industry is in the country. 

In 2011, Filipino domestic household workers in the Philippines and abroad contributed at least Php167.4 billion worth of services and remittances to the economy compared to the mining industry’s Php122.1 billion in gross production value or just Php99.2 billion in gross value added (GVA) according to the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB). Mining and quarrying only accounted for 1.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2011. 
  
More than 15 times as many Filipinos work as domestic household workers than are employed in the mining industry. There were 1.95 million domestic help employed in the country (5.2% of total employment), aside from some 1.3 million more overseas, compared to only 211,000 (0.6% of employment) in mining. 
  
IBON added that mining firms do not just employ much fewer people, but at most, give only short-term benefits to local communities which last only as long as mines are operating. 
  
Moreover, the contribution of mining is finite and ends once the mineral resources are used up. The long-term loss of Philippine mineral resources is irreversible—this underscores how the country has to get economic benefits from its mineral wealth beyond a mere share in revenues. These additional benefits will only materialize if the country has domestic industry that processes its mineral wealth and uses these as inputs for manufacturing higher-value intermediate and final goods. 
  
Mining firms currently just extract the country's mineral resources which are exported for the benefit of foreign industries. As a rough indicator, for instance, in 2011 the US$43.3 million (Php88.5 billion) in mining exports was equivalent to 89% of mining GVA. While some of the country's minerals return in final products imported by Filipinos, this is likely to be disproportionately small compared to Philippine mining exports because the country has a thin market for goods compared to many other countries. 
  
The value of services rendered by domestic household workers was estimated by multiplying their number by their Php140.89 average daily basic pay, both taken from the Labor Force Survey (LFS), by 365 days of the year – for a total of Php100.3 billion. The average daily basic pay is taken as a proxy of the economic value of their services. The remittances from domestic household workers overseas was estimated by multiplying IBON’s estimate of 1.3 million working abroad by an assumed remittance of US$100 (Php4,300) per month – for a total of Php167.4 billion. (end) 
  
  
IBON Foundation, Inc. is an independent development institution established in 1978 that provides research, education, publications, information work and advocacy support on socioeconomic issues. 

XSTRATA’S MINING MONEY MYTHS

XSTRATA’S MINING MONEY MYTHS

Large Scale Mining firms are fond of extolling the economic benefits of mining to justify their projects which are the subject of protests from all sectors of society. Their purpose is to make people blind to the social and environmental damage and drool over the economic benefits. But most often, these benefits are myths, bloated out of proportion to impress. Let us give an example.

They claim the Philippines has about $150 trillion dollars worth of un-mined minerals, dollars mind you, which, if translated, is about Php6 quadrillion. First, this is a very arbitrary figure. But let us just suppose, for the sake of argument, that this is a good reflection of actual figure. They say this figure is enough to pay for our external debt a hundred times over. It will boost our economy to the high heavens. We may in fact become a developed nation. Not in our life and not on solid earth.

The figure is quite impressive, enough to wow any reader, until you break it down and discover it is all a game of numbers. The $150 trillion is the gross value of total global prices of finished products. If you remove the cost of exploration, processing, transport, taxes, not to mention the ‘development’ funds to appease protesting host countries and host communities, you are left with about a quarter of that, or $37 trillion.

The lion’s share of that total net sales goes to the mining firm, about 92%. The 8% goes to the government in terms of 1) taxes, a miniscule 2%, which are largely unpaid in the first five years due to tax ‘incentives’, and 2) shares of the local host communities, and the private sector, including local partners who are but fronts. So we Filipinos are left with 8% of $37 trillion or $2.96 trillion. Still quite a sum, you would think, until you break it down further.

A mining project has a life span of about 25 years, so we spread that amount to get a figure of $118 billion or Php47 trillion per year. So you see, we are down from the trillions to the billions in terms of dollars, and down from the quadrillions to the trillions in terms of pesos.

Remember that the original figure of $150 trillion is a broad estimate of ‘total un-mined minerals’ of all sorts from gold to copper to nickel to zinc, etc. The proposed Xstrata-SMI gold copper mine in Tampakan, South Cotabato, to be the largest nationwide, and the fifth largest worldwide, is a miniscule $8 billion, a mere 0.00053% of that towering figure of $150 trillion. Immediately, you see the flaw. It will take two centuries perhaps to get the $150 trillion.

If we go through the same route to breakdown the Xstrata-SMI figure and compute what would benefit the Philippine economy, the gross $8 billion becomes $2 billion after expenses, then becomes $16 million after getting our 8% share, then becomes $640,000 per annum, or Php25 million. Php25 million per year is pure peanuts and will hardly make a dent as an ‘economic benefit’ to the nation. This is dwarfed by our other incomes like from our Overseas Foreign Workers (OFWs). So you see how the ‘wowing’ figure of $8 billion creates an illusion of economic growth. It is all a numbers game perpetrated by large mining firms everywhere.

What we will lose in our agrarian economy from mining is far far greater and is incomprehensible and unquantifiable because the damage is irreversible and is in perpetuity. The Xstrata-SMI proposed 1.35 billion-metric-ton tailings dam is ‘in perpetuity’, meaning forever. This massive toxic material will sit there forever on top of the mountain long after Xstrata-SMI has left with its billions. Forever, yes, until an earthquake or typhoon, similar to that one that devastated Cagayan de Oro, brings that ‘forever dam’ down the lush valley below.

The fault line of the recent Saranggani earthquake, 5.5 on the Richster scale, is very close to Tampakan. The Xstrata mine site in fact sits above a complex network of faultlines that originates in Negros.

Let us not even attempt to quantify the loss in crops across millions of hectares of prime agricultural lands, part of the Central Mindanao bread basket that contributes considerably to the food security of Mindanao, not to mention the entire nation. The Boac river in Marinduque is now dead. It is beyond rehabilitation in spite of the millions of dollars Placer Dome-Marcopper gave to the Philippine government, a drop in the bucket compared to the billions it earned from the mine. We do not even know where that rehab money went into. The Xstrata-SMI tailings dam is about 20 times bigger than that of Marcopper in the Boac River.

This means the damage across the lush valleys of South Cotabato and Davao del Sur will be irreversible, denying food to millions. If Noynoy  awards the license to Xstrata in the name of the myth of ‘economic development for the nation’, he will be inducing famine, insurgency, and set back the poverty level five times over. And since this is irreversible, we are talking of hunger for generations to come across a vast area of Central Mindanao.

Xstrata does not care. It did not even say in its EIA what happens if the dam breaks, no substantial mitigating measure, no study on the effects of such a massive cataclysm. They expect Noynoy to give the mine on a silver platter because they said it will benefit us, when it will destroy us. If Noynoy falls for it, we are all dead. He will also be the laughing stock 25 years from now, if the dam finally breaks. If he is still alive, his conscience will bother him so much, he will have nightmares about the millions of his countrymen he has rendered more poor and hungry, killing each other for the last morsels. The money we will earn from Xstrata is incomparable, so vastly miniscule compared to what we will lose in terms of food and agrarian lands through the generations.

[This article is also being emailed to Exec. Sec Jojo Ochoa, Mining Study Group Secretariat Atty. Grip Bueta, DENR Secretary Paje, MGB Director Jasareno, NCIP Zenaida Pawid, CHR Chair Rosales, South Cotabato SP Member Ernie Catedral, British Ambassador Stephen Lillie, SMI Environment Manager Ian Callow, ECJP-NASSA Chair Broderick Pabillo, Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Guttierez, NASSA Executive Secretary Fr. Edwin Gariguez, AMRSP Archie Casey, Ateneo de Davao University President Fr. Joel Tabora, SJ, SAC Marbel Fr. Joy Pelino and Rene Pamplona, Christian Monsod, Philippine Misereor Partnership Atty. Mario Maderazo, Alyansa Tigil Mina National Coordinator Jaybee Garganera, ABS-CBN Foundation President Gina Lopez, orking Group on Mining in the Philippines Clive Wicks and Robert Goodland, Philippine Daily Inquirer Editor in Chief Letty Magsanoc, Mindanews Editor in Chief Carolyn Arguillas ]

Bernie Lopez, eastwind journals

Opinyon Magazine, June 25, 2012

Palawan Tribes Go Cyber to Keep Out Nickel Miner

Palawan Tribes Go Cyber to Keep Out Nickel Miner 

By Melody Kemp 

PALAWAN – When big global mining companies set their sights on the Philippine island of Palawan, one of the world’s remaining ecological hotspots and home to many traditional tribes, little did they suspect their China-backed, billion-dollar extraction plans would be met by social media-fueled resistance.

Indigenous people in Palawan have organized globally to raise awareness about their plight and to save their ancestral lands from planned large-scale strip mining. One activist group, the Ancestral Land and Domain Watch (ALDAW), has made use of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to transform what was originally a local movement into a vibrant global environmental campaign.

“We have to struggle to maintain interest and momentum,” said Artiso Mandawa, a Palawan leader who is rarely seen without his laptop.

The story is a familiar one in Asia: a rich and politically connected mining company wins a government concession granted without local level consultations to exploit precious minerals in an ecologically sensitive area. In this case, MacroAsia, a Philippine miner listed on the local stock exchange, won the right to dig nickel from areas of Palawan, some of which have been recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a “Man and the Biosphere” reserve.

MacroAsia, majority owned by Filipino tycoon Lucio Tan, started exploration in the area in 2010 and plans to begin operations in April 2012, according to recent company statements. The company holds a mineral production sharing agreement over a 1,114-hectare area and has estimated the mine holds nearly 88 million tonnes of nickel ore. Nickel is used in the production of stainless steel.

China’s Jinchuan Group recently agreed to provide funding for a US$1 billion nickel processing plant in Palawan. The Philippines is China’s second leading supplier of nickel and much of the ore mined in Palawan will be exported to China. President Benigno Aquino agreed to $14 billion worth of mining-related investments with China, including an expansion of MacroAsia’s Palawan plans, during his state trip to Beijing in August.

Normally these powerful political and economic forces win out over local sentiments and grievances in the Philippines. But Palawan’s mix of ecological wonder, historical significance and cultural uniqueness has drawn a local and global response to the planned mining activities, one that Aquino’s supposedly reformist administration is finding difficult to ignore. On November 10, a group of indigenous people and farmers protested against Jinchuan’s mining plans in the Palawan city of Brooke’s Point, a rare public display of overt anti-China sentiment in the Philippines.
What’s yours is mine
High in Palawan’s mountains, indigenous Pala’wan and Taqbanua people live in rudimentary leaf shelters and use sleds in preference to wheeled vehicles. Some live in locations so remote that the national census fails to count their numbers. Yet their desire to stay in their deep forest and their right to do so is being beamed out from laptops tapped on by tech-savvy indigenous leaders.

Archaeologists discovered that tigers thrived on Palawan around 12,000 years ago, having entered from Borneo via the Balabac strait. The tigers are now extinct but local people have reported that various other wild cats survive in the remote area. Recent discoveries of until now unknown species in Borneo give hope that Palawan’s unexplored hinterlands may also yield undiscovered species.

Meanwhile, the cloud-soaked mountains of Palawan are home to some of the biggest stands of carbon sequestering natural forest left in Asia. These forests are rich in endemic biota, many endangered species and well represented on the Red List of endangered species compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Palawan is also known as the cradle of Philippine civilization, an area where relics of the earliest Philippine settlers have been uncovered. Local people here have traditionally traded high value resins and other non-timber forest products as well as agricultural produce from swidden and sustainable forest farming.

In contrast to this timelessness, ALDAW’s Facebook page is the epitome of modernity with a 10-million signature campaign, photographs of the former Filipino ambassador to Italy Romeo Manalo signing on to protect the wilderness, and various embedded videos of their activist activities. So far, its online petition has secured 6,000 signatures. The Philippines is among the top 10 users of Facebook in the world, sending the group’s message far and wide. In true Filipino style, the campaign to save Palawan against mining even has an official song.

But can enough “likes” on a Facebook page save a forest? In March 2006, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo moved to revive the moribund mining industry, making it a central plank to her government’s national economic strategy. This included the contract tendered to Macro Asia to mine nickel in Palawan. The results of the policy, however, have been devastating for many local communities.

Across the country, open-pit and strip mining has flattened mountain tops, polluted water courses, and felled huge stands of primary and secondary forest. On the resource-rich southern island of Mindanao, a series of high-profile executions of anti-mining advocates has led to rising tension and community fear.

Concessions have been given to many foreign investors, including small-scale Chinese miners; who activists say have shown scant concern for the natural environment in their operations. As global commodity prices rise, foreign interest in the Philippines unexploited mineral riches is rising, particularly in nearby China.

On Palawan, indigenous Tagbanua, Batak and Pala’wan people are now fighting back armed with laptops and Web 2.0 applications. In collaboration with Dario Novellino of the University of Kent’s Center for Biocultural Diversity (CBCD), they have produced videos to provide communities across the Philippines with more information on the ecological and social consequences of large scale mining.

“The companies had been approaching individual villages and people making wild and attractive promises,” Mandawa said. “We wanted to give them information from the other side, so they make decisions based on knowledge not on pressure or dreams.”

Other technological tools have been used to challenge MacroAsia’s claims to environmental consciousness during its exploration phase. For instance, hi-tech geo-tagging has appeared to show that mining area claims have pushed deep into ancestral domain lands and legally protected eco-zones.

Maps of the intrusions have been loaded onto a Facebook page and linked to Google maps alongside an online petition calling for a halt to mining activities in the area. (This correspondent flew over the area where gaping holes in the ancient forests were already widely evident.)

Generational roots 
Before the arrival of Spanish colonialists, Palawan’s peoples – the Batak, Tagbanua and Pala’wan, among others – had a complex civilization complete with participatory forms of government, an alphabet and codified trading with seagoing merchants. Families here trace their immediate families back seven or eight generations.

Even now, most continue a traditional life, eschewing cities and modernity. The Pala’wan clans maintain a system based on specialized castes, blacksmithing, botany and plant-based medicines, marine and coastal management, and (cyber) warriors to protect their interests. MacroAsia has been aggressive in its attempts to win local acceptance for their mining plan, including outlays for so-called “social and management development programs.”

“The mining company took our elders to the stinking cities,” Mandawa said, “and enticed them with electronic gadgets, mobile phones, TV’s. By the time they came back to the village they were infected with a belief that we will all have such things if the mines go ahead. Those who oppose mining never get inside the door. If we ask questions, we are escorted out.”

Now he and others have turned the tables, using those same electronic gadgets brought back from the cities to fight back against the miners.

“We made videos in communities that had experienced mining so that the information could be shared,” said Mandawa. “Those people told of broken promises, of being poorly paid wage slaves in their own land, of hunger and rivers where the fish had died. Seeing that and hearing words from the old people gave the communities more resistance to the sweet words.”

Their campaign, however, has been met with violence.

Gerardo Ortega, an environmental advocate, radio journalist and program manager of Philippine Ecotourism Palawan, was shot and killed with a bullet to the head earlier this year. In Ortega’s news reporting, he had criticized mining companies, including their alleged practice of using of fake tribal leaders to speak in support of mining in public hearings held notably in Manila, not Palawan.

“His death gave us energy to fight harder,” said Artiso, a poster on ALDAW’s Facebook page. His murder was covered in the national and international press, and has rallied the segments of the global Filipino diaspora, many of whom had hoped for a change, not murder as usual, with Aquino’s election in mid-2010.

MacroAsia had earlier claimed that 50 tribal chieftains and around 80% of the indigenous people in the Brooke’s Point area around the mine have welcomed the project – an assertion ALDAW has strongly refuted. In an August 29 press release, ALDAW argued that the position of “tribal chieftain” does not adhere to any customary definitions or community leaders in Palawan and that the position was invented to fit the interests of large corporations and government agencies.

MacroAsia has leveraged the claim of local support to receive a “certificate of precondition” from the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, which the company needs to commence full mining operations in the area. It is still awaiting a final permit to begin large-scaling mining in the area.

Global links
Despite its global component, the campaign so far has met with only limited success. Aquino’s government recently announced a moratorium on certain small-scale mining activities. MacroAsia’s type of large-scale mining planned for Palawan has not been affected by the official order.

“The moratorium is not a great success. It only prevents small-scale mining. It’s the large-scale mines which could bring Palawan’s biocultural diversity to an ultimate end,” said Kent University’s Novellino. “Yes, the pressure mobilized through the use of the web and e-mails was really conspicuous, and from different institutions.”

“But no international campaign can succeed unless it is backed by locally grounded efforts. Before ALDAW was created, Palawan NGOs had no unitary and campaign strategy,” said Novellino. “It was only through ALDAW that active collaboration and communication was established between the villagers, national advocacy bodies such as Alyansa tigil Mina (Alliance Against Mining) and international support.”

The campaign has also recruited other groups, such as Survival International and Rainforest Rescue, into the Palawan movement, which is now beginning to focus on the additional environmental threat of large-scale palm oil plantations, a nascent industry here that has devastated large swathes of forestlands in neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia.

The IUCN’s Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy and others have provided space for placing video clips into their own websites, to provide additional and different coverage of the Palawan situation. At the same time, activists and analysts say its important to maintain momentum to sustain the campaign and push back against MacroAsia’s plans for the area.

“Pressure can only be kept alive with novelty and news to elaborate the cause for which the people are fighting. In that sense, it is essential to have new documentation available: new videos, new geo-tagging evidence, new updates to keep the news and the campaign always on the move,” said Novellino.

“This is why ALDAW has put so much energy into participatory videos and field documentation. If you recycle the same news and stories, the vigor of the campaign is diluted.”

One new angle has been to put pressure on the United Nations. UNESCO’s Office in Jakarta said that its “Man and the Biosphere” ranking for biodiversity hot spots deferred to national sovereignty in relation to land-use issues. After a social media-fuelled call to act, UNESCO has since promised to investigate the claims made by ALDAW and others.

Melody Kemp is an environmental journalist currently living in Indonesia.

(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Resource Depletion Damages Third World - World Bank

Resource Depletion Damages Third World - World Bank

Published Date: 15-09-2005

On precisely the same day both the World Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme have come out with reports which attempt to "revalue" natural (including mineral) resources, against the negative consequences of their continued depletion, and consequent environmental damage. Sceptics might consider it a bit ripe for the Bank to tout conservation while continuing to back projects that destroy "natural capital". Perhaps better late than never - but is it already too late?

Resource Depletion Damages Third World - World Bank

Story by Ed Stoddard, Planet Ark

September 15, 2005

JOHANNESBURG - Resource depletion and surging population growth are draining the net "savings" of the world's poorest countries and could cripple future generations, according to a new World Bank study.

It said a new measure of wealth -- which goes beyond the traditional gross domestic product yardstick -- showed many developing countries were sinking deeply into the red.

"Accounting for the actual value of natural resources, including resource depletion and population growth, shows that net savings per person are negative in the world's most impoverished countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa," it said.

Entitled "Where is the Wealth of Nations?", the study looks at resource extraction and other variables not commonly used. "Current indicators used to guide development decisions -- national accounts figures, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) -- ignore depletion of resources and damage to the environment," the World Bank said in a statement.

"Where is the Wealth of Nations? ... offers new estimates of total wealth, including produced capital, natural resources, and the value of human skills and capabilities, which show that many of the poorest countries ... are not on a sustainable path."

Swiss on top, Ethopia bottom

The study offers a ranking of 118 countries, with Switzerland topping the list with wealth per capita of $648,241. At the bottom is Ethiopia at $1,965.

Also near the bottom is the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, which has rapid population growth, rampant deforestation and is losing much of its soil through erosion.

Densely populated and ecologically stressed Burundi -- also a powder-keg of ethnic conflict -- is second from the bottom. The study says natural capital -- the value of minerals, energy, forests, pastureland, cropland and protected areas -- is a much higher share of total wealth in low-income countries than produced capital at 26 percent compared with 16 percent.

Produced capital is defined as machinery, structures and urban land.

The study looks at "intangible capital", which it says is calculated as the difference between total wealth and the sum of produced and natural capital.

There are bright spots in the developing world where resource wealth is being saved rather than squandered.

"Mauritania has improved its development prospects through better management of fishery resources, while Botswana has successfully used diamond resources to finance the schooling, health care, and infrastructure which have supported its high rate of growth," says the World Bank.

"(A) sound combination of macroeconomic and natural resource management has permitted Botswana to avoid the 'resource curse' that has afflicted many oil producers," it says.

Many African economies are heavily dependent on resources and critics say the cash generated in boom times are often wasted, leaving little for the busts of the commodity cycle.

---

Spending on Environment Yields Big Returns - Report

September 15, 2005

Story by Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent, Planet Ark

OSLO - Spending to protect the environment, from coral reefs to forests, can bring big returns to aid a worldwide assault on poverty, a UN-backed report said on Wednesday.

The study, coinciding with a summit of world leaders in New York, even suggested that forests may be more valuable when left standing rather than being cleared for crops because trees can absorb the heat-trapping gases widely blamed for global warming.

"The environment...is not a luxury good, only affordable when all other problems have been solved," said Klaus Toepfer, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) which was among 30 international groups behind the report.

The study estimated that annual investments of $60-$90 billion in the environment over 10-15 years were needed to reach a world goal of halving the proportion of humanity living on less than a dollar a day, currently more than a billion people.

A further $80 billion a year was needed to limit global warming, widely linked to gases from burning fossil fuels in factories, cars and power plants, over the next 50 years.

Once invested, it said that every dollar spent on clean water and sanitation in the Third World, for instance, could bring $14 in benefits ranging from lower health care costs to higher work productivity and school attendance.

"Conservation of habitats and ecosystems are also cost effective when compared with the short-term profits from environmentally damaging activities" including dynamite fishing, mining or deforestation, it said.

Every dollar invested in fighting land degradation and desertification, like building terraces to stop hillside erosion, could generate at least $3 in benefits, the Poverty Environment Partnership report estimated.

Corals beat dynamite

And every dollar invested in protecting coral reefs could generate $5, ranging from scuba-diving tourism to renewable fish stocks. Forests could play a role in slowing climate change because trees absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.

"The carbon storage or 'sequestration' potential of forests ranges between $360 and $2,200 per hectare which makes them worth far more than if they are converted to grazing or cropland," UNEP said.

And the study said that it becomes far more cost effective to conserve forests than to clear them once carbon prices exceed $30 a tonne.

In a European Union market, launched this year as part of a UN plan to curb global warming, carbon dioxide emission allowances trade at about 22 euros ($27.03) per tonne.

The report also pointed to other ways to place a value on the environment. Brazilian farmers in parts of the Amazon turned to forest nuts and berries when their crops failed, for instance, making the forests a "nature-based insurance policy." 

Letter to the Edittor

Dear Editor, 

In the past few weeks the integrity of the Save Palawan Movement has been questioned. I need to make one thing crystal clear. We do not lie. The foundation of the Save Palawan Movement is Truth and the Common Good. The tables of Prof. Balisacan speak for themselves. In Mining the incidence of poverty is increasing. The tables do not say that mining has CAUSED poverty - but what the tables indicate - is that people involved in the mining sector stay poor year after year after year. Poor people also go to construction, agriculture, manufacturing - but the incidence of poverty in those sectors has been steadily decreasing. Why is mining the only sector where the incidence of poverty has been progressively increasing FOR THE LAST TWENTY YEARS?! Doesnt this say something about how the sector performs. 

I can confidently say - that if poor people get involved in community based sustainable eco torusim. THEIR LIVES WILL IMPROVE!! I know this from personal experience. Puerto Princesa, and Bohol show that tourism is the way to go. The Save Palawan Movement does not lie. The fact remains the highest incidence of poverty is in the mining sector AND IT HAS INCREASED BY 74% SINCE 1988!

When the Chamber of Mines can print that mining does not affect agriculture, fishery resources - and I have farmers and fishermen whose lives say otherwise - who is lying? When the Chamber of Mines say that mining does not affect tourism - and I have been to islands I can no longler help because there are huge pits that have permanently scarred the island - who is lying? When the Save Palawan Movement wants to save bio diversity in Palawan and wants to eradicate poverty through the care of the environment - and the mining takes advantage of that poverty to enrich themselves, who should Palawan be protected from?

Mining Sector Can't Deliver Jobs: Study

By Stella A. Estremera

Friday, December 2, 2011

Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on December 03, 2011.

DAVAO CITY — A policy paper by the Ateneo de Manila University School of Governance (ADMUSoG) points to official records that show the mining industry does not deliver the promises of economic boom and job generation that those pushing for mining operations in Mindanao, among them National Government officials, are always saying.

In the paper entitled “Is there a future for mining in the Philippines?” released just Friday by ADMUSoG, a copy of which was emailed to Sun.Star Davao, it was pointed out that employment generation as claimed by those pushing for mining is but a drop based on official records at that.

Based on the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), mining and quarrying sector has not even breached one percent in terms of employment contribution to the national total.

“Recent data has shown that it has been 0.5 percent since 2008 until 2010. So far, for the first half of 2011, contribution has been reported as 0.6 percent (in contrast to agriculture at 33 percent in 2011),” it said, adding even in other parts of the world, mining is a low employment generator.

“The Tampakan project, with expected investments of $5.9 billion, will provide only 2,000 permanent jobs,” it said.

The sector’s contribution to other sectors is also very small as compared to what other sectors are contributing.

Citing economist and former National Economic Development Authority Director General Cielito Habito’s paper for the Asian Development Bank in 2010 entitled, “An Agenda for High and Inclusive Growth in the Philippines”, it underlined the fact that labor compensation in the mining sector accounts only for 13.3 percent as compared to the average 20.7 percent in all other sectors.

“The sector has a backward linkage index of only 0.46, meaning there is relatively little input from other domestic industries; even the forward linkage of 0.82 indicates that the sector is below average compared to all other sectors in generating further domestic economic activities. Minerals are being exported with little value-adding that could have generated further employment and industry linkage,” the report said.

This simply means that benefits from mining operations do not trickle down nor ripple much.

MGB records show exports of minerals and mineral products averaged 4.5 percent of total exports and was at 4.3 percent in the first half of 2011, while exports of non-metallic minerals was a meager 0.4 percent for the past four years.

Agriculture, in comparison, has been contributing eight percent, while the main economic drivers remain to be the manufacturing and service sector, which contributes 50 percent of gross domestic product.

Admitting that there are few available studies on poverty incidence in mining areas, these few show no perceptible improvement in the lives of local residents where mining operations operate.

“In a recent study by Balisacan (Balisacan, Arcenio, 2011, Multidimensional Poverty in the Philippines: New Measures, Evidence, and Policy Implications), the poverty incidence among individuals engaged in mining has continued to increase, compared to workers in other sectors. In 2006, income poverty in the sector was at 34.64 and by 2009 it increased to 48.71,” the policy brief said, adding: “The mining sector also shows a high deprivation in health and education compared to other industries.”

It then points to a 2003 poverty incidence report by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) where Bataraza in Palawan, where Rio Tuba has been operating nickel mining for the past three decades, poverty incidence is twice the national rate.

Bataraza is also in the bottom 25 percent of municipalities on poverty incidence, the report said.

What cannot be denied is that benefits from mining operations like new roads and other infrastructure is only while there is something to be mined. There are no economic benefits after the mines stop operating because the ore have all been extracted.

While all these and more seem to describe mining as based on official records, there is no study that quantifies social and environment costs.

Citing the recent attack on mining facilities in Surigao del Norte by the New People’s Army (NPA), the study said government should have an accounting of how much it costs to provide security for these operations, in terms of logistics and manpower for the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police.

But there is no such data available. Operations that affect coastal areas are also costing local governments, like the ones in Negros Occidental and Ilocos provinces, because these have to invest in coastal ecosystem protection, but again, there is no study that measures this as part of the cost of mining.

Among other facts disregarded, the paper states, “Losses to government and community investments are not accounted for in the decision to allow coastal mining.”

Given the facts of how little mining contributes and what is not being measured in terms of its costs to local governments and communities as well as the National Government, the paper continued: “Is this a responsible thing to do – to base decisions on guesswork? Should we exercise caution instead? How much benefit will we forego if we decide to exercise precaution? Can we afford to gamble our future for so little benefit that extends to so few? Can we afford the cost of conflicts that leave so many with ill feeling, which could prevent cooperation in more inclusive productive activities? Unless we gain a better handle on the value of what we lose in exchange for mining, we have no rational basis for decision-making.”

More so, it urged the National Government to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples and local governments to say no to mining, as talks are growing louder that President Benigno Aquino III will be coming up with a new mining policy that will curtail the role of locals in deciding the fate of big mining companies that intend to dig up their mountains.

“We, the current generation, are potential beneficiaries of mining operations. But we must remain aware of our responsibility as caretakers of our nation’s wealth for the enjoyment of our children and their children. The country’s mineral resources are limited and exhaustible. Do we really have to pressure ourselves to cash in on the benefits now? The Ateneo School of Government’s position is that the country could wait for better conditions and negotiate better terms on the basis of better information,” the paper pointed out.

Stating that ADMUSoG is neither for nor against mining, it stressed that it does not shy away from “taking a principled stand on issues, after rigorous examination of facts and engaging stakeholders with different perspectives in honest and candid discussions.” (Sun.Star Davao/Sunnex)