Philippines’s plan for mining deals with China nixed by green activists

Is there another ZTE NBN scandal in the making with Chinese mining firms?

Environmental watchdogs today castigated the Arroyo administration for planning to enter into deals with Chinese mining firms. At their meetings with Chinese investors such as the Philippine Business and Investment Forum, Pres. Arroyo and Spokesperson Ignacio Bunye was quoted by media reports as saying that “major investment opportunities” await Chinese firms in “sunrise industries” such as mining and biofuels.

“What other secret and shady deals are in the making with Chinese firms, this time in the mining sector?” asked Clemente Bautista, Jr., National Coordinator for Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE).

“The ZTE NBN controversy has barely subsided and now Pres. Arroyo is already rushing to clinch other deals with Chinese firms in the mining sector,” Bautista said.

“If the NBN ZTE broadband deal is tainted with corruption and the JPEPA is riddled with loopholes, what more do we expect from the Arroyo administration’s future deals with Chinese mining firms? ” Bautista said.

“We do not want to import more mining disasters. Remember that China also has a relatively bad record with mining disasters, especially in its coal mines ,” Bautista said, “China is unanimously regarded as among the worst violators of Occupational Health and Safety in mining and periodic reports from the international press report deaths of mine workers in major accidents.” This month alone, Bautista said, Beijing media reported that 172 miners trapped in a flooded mine in eastern China recently were declared dead.

“This time, the future of the Filipino people is at stake. As the experience of other countries has shown, promoting foreign large-scale mining is a very environmentally-damaging and economically-disastrous policy to embark on,” Bautista warned.

“The public is already wary of Arroyo in the light of her revitalized mining projects and her dismal record of handling mining disasters in favor of the foreign mining companies involved. We can not expect future mining deals to be different from these ,” Bautista said.

Bautista said these deals with China would already add to the “massive mining rush approved by the Arroyo administration”. As of November 2005, the Philippine government has issued a total of 383 mining permits nationwide, according to the Mining Tenements Statistics Report of the Mining Tenements Management Division of the DENR Mines and Geosciences Bureau. These mining permits come in the form of Mineral Production Sharing Agreements (MPSAs), Financial and Technical Assistance Agreements (FTAAs) and Exploration Permits (EPs). An additional 2,229 mining applications are under processing to date.

Also, lucrative mining deals are also prone to corruption by public officials, Bautista said.

“The public is hereby warned,” he added.

“But much much worse than any corruption scandal is the massive plunder of our national patrimony that the Arroyo administration is facilitating. Corruption is a grave offense but plunder of our natural resources is an even bigger crime because it robs us of our future for development ,” Bautista ended. ###

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