‘Mr. President, Tampakan is not fit for mining’
Bishops, groups remind P-Noy to reject the Tampakan Mining Project

Manila – Malacañang received on August 14 a letter from two Catholic bishops and other environmental groups urging the President to immediately deny the appeal of the Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI) for the issuance of an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) for its mining project in Tampakan. Groups reminded the President that Tampakan is not fit for mining.

The letter emphasized that the basis for issuing the ECC is incomplete. The group explained that DENR and its Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) still failed to recognize more serious factors in rejecting the project which include significant environmental degradation, loss of water for agriculture and other livelihoods, and the long-term burden it will leave to the community once the mine life in the contract ends.

Alyansa Tigil Mina, one of the organizations who signed in the letter, pointed out that the Tampakan project is like attracting disasters that can be more destructive than what the country is experiencing right now.

“Experts had clarified already that the proposed site for the Tampakan mining project lies above a number of fault lines and the drilling activity of the mine can induce seismic movements. And even without the opinion of the experts, one can clearly see that just kilometers away from the site is Mount Matutum, and we still want to mine the area?” asked Jaybee Garganera, national coordinator of Alyansa Tigil Mina.

The groups enumerated in the letter the problems and risks that are inadequately addressed in the environmental study conducted by SMI and Xstrata themselves, which includes the misleading account for almost 4,000 hectares of forest land that will be part of the open-pit mine.

“At this time when we need to plant more trees, restore our forests and build resilient communities, our government should not engage in projects such as the Tampakan mining project that will continue to demolish our mountains, hack our trees and divide our communities,” said Anabelle Plantilla, Chief Operating Officer of Haribon Foundation.

“We should not further destroy our remaining defense against the impacts of climate change,” Plantilla added.

Meanwhile, the social arm of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines who had been opposing the project expressed disappointment to DENR for not making a firm decision to reject the project.

“How can we engage in business that even just in the beginning of the project had already violated our policies, abused human rights and ignored the rights of the indigenous people?”asked Fr. Edu Garguez, executive secretary of CBCP-NASSA.

“Unless the president wants to leave a horrible legacy to country, he can approve the project but he will be the subject of his own statement in his SONA, forgive and forget. Only this time, we will not give both,” Gariguez added.

Alyansa Tigil Mina is an alliance of mining-affected communities and their support groups of NGOs/POs and other civil society organizations who are opposing the aggressive promotion of large-scale mining in the Philippines. The alliance is currently pushing for a moratorium on mining, revocation of Executive Order 270-A, repeal of the Mining Act of 1995 and passage of the AMMB.

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For more information:
Fr Edu Gariguez, CBCP-NASSA Executive Secretary, 092283448248
Jaybee Garganera, ATM National Coordinator – 09277617602
Farah Sevilla – policy@alyansatigilmina.net; 0915-3313361
Edel S. Garingan – communications@alyansatigilmina.net; 0922-8918972

ATM Press Release
August 20, 2012

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