Would You Plant Your Feet in Mid-air?

(A response to Peter Wallace’s "Would You Invest Here?")

George Bernard Shaw once said about liberals as people who “have their feet solidly planted in mid-air.” We have nothing against liberals, neither anything in favor of conservatives nor something about those in the grey area between. Also, we do not know if the Australian columnist Peter Wallace is a liberal, conservative or anywhere in the grey area between. Of one thing, however, we are certain: as to the reality of life for the millions of toiling masses of Filipinos, Mr. Wallace is way up in his Cloud 9. We do not blame him. He is an alien from Down Under where life is more pleasant. The Philippines is poor because we citizen Filipinos have no control over and do not benefit from our own natural resources. Those resources have been given over to foreigners by Filipino authorities who are junior partners of the former. The toiling masses get meager wages, the junior partners get much but the foreign investor reaps the lion’s share. In Rapu-Rapu, for example, based on figures from Lafayette itself, the gain is $37.5 for every $1 invested. If the Philippines is in such a mess, most of the cause is foreign domination which, today, masquerades as foreign investment which Mr. Wallace taunts us to accept hook, line and sinker much like the spider that welcomed its victims to the parlor:

Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver wing;
Your robes are green and purple — there’s a crest upon your head;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead!”
Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue –
Thinking only of her crested head — poor foolish thing! At last,
Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held her fast.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,
Within his little parlour — but she ne’er came out again!

And now dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly flattering words, I pray you ne’er give heed:
Unto an evil counsellor, close heart and ear and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.

Again, take the case of the residents of Rapu-Rapu. Mr. Wallace once wrote, “where’s the pot of gold?” (Manila Standard Today October 26, 2007) We ask, in Rapu-Rapu where’s the development? When our NGO volunteers went there in August 2009, they saw a woman making hard brooms out of coconut midribs. Each sells for P15 (about 35 US cents). She makes four in a day. Yet, the coconuts are threatened by destruction as the mining operation of the former Lafayette Mining Limited of Australia through its local subsidiary, Lafayette Philippines, Inc. (now named Korea Malaysia Philippines Resources, Inc) expands from the southern tip to the north of the island.

Mr. Wallace is in the Philippines to convince Filipinos that Australian investment is good. We do know it is good! But good for whom? Certainly for them; we have doubts if it is, for Filipinos. The Rapu-Rapu trauma from Lafayette Mining Limited of Australia may not be the representative case of their engagement here but it definitely opens our minds to the very real phenomenon of good intentions paving the road to hell.

On March 5, 2010 Mr. Wallace wrote in the Manila Standard Today:

A mine (Lafayette) was closed for a mining spill that did no measurable damage. A delay of over 6 months to approve reopening forced the company into bankruptcy. Bishop Arturo Bastes lied to encourage that closure, which the government acquiesced to.

Mr. Wallace strayed too far from the facts of that unhappy incident (unhappy, for us here in the locality) as the following rebuttals would prove:

The mining spills of 2005 did a lot of damage. – Lafayette violated the Clean Water Act of the Philippines. It was slapped with a total of P16 million in fines. Mr. Wallace can go over the records of the Pollution Adjudication Board. If the fines were undeserved, then Mr. Wallace can initiate a refund proceeding.

The people of Rapu-Rapu and surrounding towns suffered immensely from income loss because the fish in Albay Gulf were poisoned with cyanide measured at 35 parts per million (the tolerable limit is 0.05 ppm). (Source: Mines and Geosciences Bureau “Fact sheet on the Mercury Issue in Albay” dated February 2, 2006 Page 9) While the executives of Lafayette continued to earn their millions in salaries, the fishermen of Albay and Sorsogon lost their meager incomes. The pre-operation survey of Lafayette revealed that the fishermen in the primary impact barangays of Malobago, Pagcolbon and Binosawan were earning P19.8 million a year. (Source: Lafayette Powerpoint presentation titled Baseline Data slide 12). The company did not reveal any economic impact study after the mining operation started. However, Ibon Foundation learned, through a study in February 2007, that the average weekly income of fishermen in five barangays (Poblacion, Malobago, Binosawan, Tinopan in Rapu-Rapu and Billante in Prioto Diaz) dropped by 68.56%. (Ibon Foundation; Mining Rapu-Rapu’s Pot of Gold, a Study on the Socioeconomic Impacts of the Rapu-Rapu Polymetallic Project on the Residents of Rapu-Rapu, Albay and Prieto Diaz, Sorsogon). These are the hard facts on the ground. So, where’s the development? Would you invest in mining here and still raise your nose high in civilized society?

Mr. Wallace should have been there when the women, children and some men from Rapu-Rapu Island stormed the session of the Albay Provincial Board on December 12, 2007. Ms. Shanta Martin, then with Oxfam Australia, was there to witness for all Australians. Those people dared to storm a government function because they have been suffering from immeasurable damage. Does Mr. Wallace still insist on his “no measurable damage”? Perhaps, he is right - because “no measurable damage” also translates to immeasurable damage!

November 2005 to July 2006 was not a period of total closure. – During that period, Rapu-Rapu Processing, Inc. was ordered to stop but, Lafayette’s other arm, the Rapu-Rapu Minerals, Inc. continued to blast the open pit and quarry for gold, silver, copper and zinc. The dust continued to settle on the surrounding villages and the shaking of the ground was felt as far as the town center. Instead of totally closing the mine, erstwhile DENR Secretary Angelo Reyes ordered a “test run” following the advice of one member of the Rapu-Rapu Fact-finding Commission, Mr. Gregorio Tabuena. What took place were one “test run” after another until the mine had a semblance of compliance with the Clean Water Act of the Philippines. True enough, the runs were not tests but “tutorials.” A test is administered by a teacher on a student who works independently. In the case of Lafayette, the Technical Working Group was behind the company tutoring it on what to do when there were failures (the TWG Report shows that on July 20-21, 2006 there was a fishkill; the graphs of the readings of heavy metal content of samples were “way above the charts.”)

Lafayette was not bankrupt. It could afford to pay Mr. Roderick Watt $ 365,867 or the equivalent of P18,293,350 (at exchange rates prevailing in 2006 and 2007) despite the October spills. Mr. David Baker earned $ 1,197,884 or P 55,433,075. (Source: LML Annual Reports for 2006 and 2007) Lafayette is like the man who went to a feast and later complained that he starved!

Some impudence.- Mr. Wallace has the temerity to write: Bishop Arturo Bastes lied to encourage that closure, which the government acquiesced to. If Mr. Wallace wrote a similar charge against a Muslim imam, he would have deserved a fatwah call for death. But we are Catholics and we are reminded of the first of the Seven Last Words of Christ: Forgive them for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).

It is bad enough that an Australian meddles in Philippine affairs. It is worse that a foreigner insults a Filipino. It is worst that a foreign meddler fallaciously writes in the press of a predominantly Catholic country that a bishop lied!

Bishop Arturo Bastes, SVD of the Diocese of Sorsogon told the truth that the Commission, formed with presidential approval, recommended the closure of the Rapu-Rapu mine. The government did not acquiesce to the recommendation. On the contrary, Sec. Reyes allowed Lafayette to undergo “tutorial” runs; the company failed the “tutorials” as the TWG Report proves; and yet Lafayette was permitted in the end to continue normal operations. That is the bare truth! Wallace is the one lying!

How would he know the truth about Rapu-Rapu? He was never here. He did not see the mother of three children who almost died after eating poisoned fish from the seashore. He does not feel the earth shaken when RRMI blasts the open pit. He does not traverse hills and creeks on foot for seven hours just to sell farm produce in the town center. He cannot see the brown, yellow and orange colors of creeks emanating from the minesite and disgorging their waters into Albay Gulf. He is way up there in Could 9, his feet solidly planted in mid-air.

To prove how absurd the position of this Wallace is, the reader is invited to read his article titled “Corruption is endemic – but must it be?” published in the Manila Standard Today on April 9, 2010. After devoting ten paragraphs to the corruption of the Berlusconi government in Italy, Mr. Wallace writes: Don’t you find yourself transcribing “Philippines” into each of the paragraphs above?

What is the point of mentioning this? The point is that Mr. Wallace himself is convinced that the Philippines is wracked with corruption. If he knows the Philippines that much then he also knows how deep corruption has crept into the implementation of environmental laws, the Mining Act of 1995 included. For example, he should know that Lafayette’s lawyer offered P5 million to the local officials of Rapu-Rapu to get the latter’s assent to the reopening of the mine. Lafayette itself drafted the resolution supposed to be passed by the municipal council calling for the resumption of mine operation. There is the National Bureau of Investigation Legazpi District Office Report which concluded that there was no contamination in and around the mine site yet it says the sampling was done on April 4, 2006 then submitted to the NBI Forensic Chemistry Division in Manila on March 28, 2006 – one week before the date of sample gathering! Asked through two letters how this discrepancy in dates happened, the NBI Legazpi District Office never gave a formal reply, just a verbal word that we did not deserve a copy of the report because we were not the ones who commissioned the NBI investigation. I had a chance to divulge this discrepancy in a conference of pollution control officers on May 9, 2007 in Casablanca Hotel in Legazpi City in the presence of Engr. Jason Magdaong of Lafayette. The engineer replied that his company had nothing to do with the NBI Legazpi report!

A lot more skeletons in the closet await anyone who would care to read about the Lafayette misadventure in Rapu-Rapu. I have written a book about it. It is due for launching soon.