The Alyansa Tigil Mina Blog

Marinduque officials act to ease pressure on environment

The Sangguniang Panlalawigan ng Marinduque, in a special session held jointly with all six municipal councils of the province agreed to unite and consolidate all efforts in coming up with urgent alternative solutions to the imminent and present danger” posed by the Upper and Lower Makulapnit Dams in the abandoned mine site of Marcopper Mining Corp.

The first historic initiative undertaken by the body was the declaration of a 50-year large-scale mining moratorium on Oct. 28, 2006.

And to think, the government was recently contemplating allowing Placer Dome back into the country. It is their shoddily made dams that are creating the conditions for a possible second environmental disaster in Marinduque and their responsibility for it is simply being ignored.

MILF tells mining companies to leave its ‘territories’

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on Saturday urged mining companies to leave its claimed territory, saying it was against mining operations.
The MILF has presence in Central Mindanao region and the province of Davao del Sur, where Sagittarius Mines extracts copper and gold, and the Zamboanga Peninsula, where Canadian firm Toronto Ventures operates a mining site.

There are also mining activities in other areas where the MILF maintains a presence.
“It brings in more disaster rather than good things to the Bangsamoro people,” Jun Mantawil, chair of the MILF peace panel secretariat, said.
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The MILF, he said, doubted if mining companies cared about the lives of people because these “are profit-centered.”

Emphasis ours.

Agta folk flee from military operations

Hundreds of Agta families from the Sierra Madre mountains continue to suffer in different evacuation sites in General Nakar and Infanta towns in northern Quezon province due to the military’s counterinsurgency operations.

“Most of our children are now getting sick from the sudden change of climate. They are used to cold weather in the mountain and not to the humid air in the lowland,” said Nap Buendicho, president of Agta (Adhikain ng mga Grupong Taong Katutubo na Nagtatanggol sa Lupaing Ninuno) tribe, in a phone interview on May 5 from the Tribal Center for Development building in Infanta, one of the shelters for the refugees.
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Buendicho said the military had been suspecting that Agta settlements were serving as sanctuaries for communist rebels, especially during military operations.
“We’re not partisans to any armed groups. We’re just simple mountain folk, living in peace and harmony in the Sierra Madre until the fighting began,” he said.

Gov’t reviews peace pact with Balweg militia

The government is reviewing a peace agreement with the militia organized by the late rebel priest Conrado Balweg after admitting that it failed to fulfill its promises to the group.
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Renato Navata, Cordillera director of the Department of Agrarian Reform, said he was surprised to hear from CPLA commanders in Kalinga province last week that their only requests from the government were clean water, good roads, and livelihood projects for old rebels.
“If these were all the rebels wanted from us [in the government], what stopped us from giving [these] to them?” Navata said during a session attended by Dureza, the Cordillera Regional Development Council, and Balweg’s widow, Corazon Cortel.

Tribesmen forge antimining pact

In a bid to forestall small-scale mining in Kalinga, tribal leaders of the gold-rich villages of Balatoc and Guina-ang in Pasil, Kalinga have asked the Provincial Mining and Regulatory Board and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources not to approve the applications of miners who come from their own villages.

Ten leaders of the Balatoc and Guina-ang tribes signed recently at Barangay Uma in Lubuagan, also in Kalinga, a joint manifesto asking the authorities to prohibit any individual or group applying for a permit to start small-scale mining operations, particularly in areas disputed by the two tribes.

2 NPA rebels killed in Quezon; guerrillas attack mining area

Meanwhile, two tunnel workers in a mining area were wounded and a firearm of a police officer was taken away when some 100 heavily armed men believed to be NPA members swooped down on a mining area at Lansang Creek, Barangay Tambis, Barobo town, Surigao del Sur the other day, a belated report reaching the operation center of Northeastern Mindanao Police Regional Office 13 (PRO 13) stated.

15 Years on, Life Returns to Pinatubo

Life is rapidly returning to this Central Luzon mountain 15 years after it blew its top in an eruption that killed more than 1,500 people and sent a cloud of ash into the atmosphere that cooled world temperatures for years.
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Santa Juliana is now experiencing a rebirth as a tourist gateway. Spas and resorts are sprouting up to cater to mountain trekkers, including South Koreans, who climb the mountain daily by the dozens during the dry months.

Drive vs illegal logging seen as doomed

In a bid to forestall small-scale mining in Kalinga, tribal leaders of the gold-rich villages of Balatoc and Guina-ang in Pasil, Kalinga have asked the Provincial Mining and Regulatory Board and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources not to approve the applications of miners who come from their own villages.

No pact yet on ancestral domain: negotiators

The Philippine government and Moro separatist rebel negotiators said yesterday they have yet to reach agreement on territorial issues in an ancestral lands deal.
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But they said “more work had to be done on the strand of territory, particularly in the determination and delimitation of areas” to be placed under the Muslims’ territory.
Negotiators were “held back from reaching full consensus by the highly technical nature of the delimitation and demarcation of territory,” it said.

“For this purpose, they agreed to conduct further ground validation and collection of additional data to guide them in the resolution of remaining items.”