THE Great Debate (that’s what it has become) is destined to get hotter and more bitter after the President of the Philippines showed on which side of the controversy he is on.
“Resolved: That Corporate mining is preferable to Small-scale mining”
President Benigno S. Aquino III met last week with members of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) at the Grand Regal Hotel in Davao City where he was presented with a resolution signed by all LMP members proposing that the national government impose a moratorium on the entry of large scale mining companies in the Philippines.
The resolution expressed the sense of 1,496 municipal mayors who, in effect, had taken the side of small-scale miners against their “big brothers” who are into corporate mining. The resolution, drawn up and signed by politicians who dare not ignore the wishes of their constituents, certainly contained political undertones that was not lost on the President.
P-Noy must have anticipated something like that, but showed an inkling of political will when he told the assembled town mayors: ”I am no longer a spring chicken. Maganda pakinggan ang resolution, pero dapat makatotohanan (the resolution sounds good, but it must be realistic.” The reason for his stand, he said, is because small-scale mining is very difficult to regulate and is more destructive to the environment.
The silence that followed was so deafening, one could hear a pin drop.
Some other government officials, like Governor Corazon Malanyaon of Davao Oriental for example, are against small-scale mining, claiming that its operations in her province has been her “headache” while two brothers – Governor Arturo Uy of Compostela Province and Mayor Rey Uy of Tagum City – do not share Malanyaon’s “headache”, saying that small-scale mining can be regulated if only the government would have the will to do it.
The President’s stand is not the end of the Great Debate. Far from it. Corporate mining has other enemies, like the Catholic Church and environmentalists. Both protagonists have valid reasons for their respective stands in the debate, and the controversy will rage on and is expected to draw battle lines sooner than later, with politicians certainly expected to take sides eventually, the more knowledgeable and sensible helping to put the problem in the proper perspective while the ignorant among them helping to muddle the issues (as expected).
Quo vadis, Philippine mining?
