The mining operation in the small island of Rapu-Rapu has no significant direct or indirect benefit for the people. We have advocated the following, in lieu of mining:
1. Agriculture. – Support for farming, fishing and genuine land distribution has been the clamor of the island residents. With mining, the land that the miners will leave behind will not be conducive to agriculture because it will have no humus which plants need in their growth. Instead, acid-forming rocks and soil will make the land poisonous when the rains fall. The runoff containing both acid and silt will flow to and damage the sea. Mining will destroy the food supply of generations, whereas agriculture will ensure that every generation will have food on the table. Mining feeds the luxury of aliens - gold; agriculture sustains the most basic need of our own people - food.
2. Energy generation. – In Binosawan a microhydroelectric plant was designed by the British-Vietnamese engineer Minh Nguyen and installed through the help of the British Embassy, United Nations Development Program, Social Action Center, Sta. Florentina Parish, Sibol ng Bagong Agham at Teknolohiya, and Aquinas University of Legazpi. It sustained the lighting needs of 70 household 24 hours a day until Supertyphoon Reming damaged the lines. The miners provide a diesel-powered generator which operates 12 hours a day and emits air pollutants.
3. Fast sea transportation. – If the miners could use the fastcraft Lady Jacqueline of Leighton and reached Rapu-Rapu in one hour, why can’t the local government or any private firm invest in the same? At present it takes 3 hours to go to the island.
4. Ecofriendly road network. – After years of Hixbar and Lafayette presence on the island, and the pork barrel, none accrued to road projects in Rapu-Rapu. The only infrastructure built in the island after the alleged P135 million in taxes in 2009 is an earth road from Poblacion to Morocborocan allegedly worth P5 million and expected to be washed away when the rains come.
5. Decent housing. – With mining, the residents are pushed to the margins of the island. Residents of Binosawan are even under threat of a landslide from the waste rock deposit piled in the upper slopes. The people are entitled to houses that can withstand the typhoons that pass by the locality.
6. Potable water system. – The mining operation already poses severe drinking water problems to Pagcolbon as evidenced by the letter of Sanggunian Secretary Allan Asuncion to Engr. Roger Corpus. As the mining coverage expands, the island’s water supply will be erased.
7. Preservation of the island’s ecosystem. – No amount of taxes, no amount of rehabilitation fund will ever compensate for the damage to a fragile ecosystem because the damage is irreversible and would last for several generations, 2000 years according to National Geographic Magazine.
The basic question is not how to mine Rapu-Rapu but how to develop the island and mining is not a sustainable option. There is development when people have fair access to the seven basic material needs - food, clothing, shelter, livelihood or employment, education, security (against crime, disease and effects of old age), and recreation. When they have no such access as a result of mistaken economic priorities like permitting an island to be mined engendering environmental damage and economic injustice, there can be no development.