The Recent Action of EMB V to Curb Coal Mining in Rapu-Rapu

The recent action of EMB V’s new head, Director Fernando P. Quililan, to give attention to coal mining in Rapu-Rapu is welcome news. We in SARA are not in favor of any form of mining that destroys the natural environment. We also decry coal mining per se when its product will be used as fuel considering that coal burning is a major source of carbon dioxide that causes global warming. (Coal can be put to environment-friendly use as filter for cleaning polluted water.)

Coal mining in Rapu-Rapu, nevertheless, pales in comparison to gold, silver, copper and zinc mining being done in the island by RRMI and RRPI. While the former has not caused any fishkill, for example, since way back in the past, the latter has caused five major fishkills since 2005 when it went into full operation. Daily, the residents of the island see dead fish floating in the sea. This is the reason why there is no more major fishkill. There are not that many fish to kill anymore. Instead, fishermen are complaining of a severe drop in fish catch from 20 bañeras of “bolinao” before 2005 to 1 bañera today. Coal mining in Rapu-Rapu has been going on for years but only when Lafayette started its activities did the problems of fishermen and farmers begin.

The difference is like that between the bite of an ant and that of a poisonous cobra. EMB V should put proper perspective in its action. If it is alarmed with coal mining in Rapu-Rapu, it should cry extreme danger with gold, silver, copper and zinc mining. As the Bible says in Matthew 7:3: And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Certainly, EMB V can stop coal mining in Rapu-Rapu but first it must stop the bigger and more disastrous mine of RRMI and RRPI. Anything short of that is sheer hypocrisy!

Wikileaks and Rapu-Rapu Mining

Wikileaks has captured world attention. Among the reactions it has so far generated is an article by Margaret Heffernan titled Bank of America is Not the Only Company that Should Fear Wikileaks. An excerpt from the article reads:

Most companies worldwide have skeletons in their closets that they hope no one will ever see - including themselves. That they’d prefer to look away is institutionalized willful blindness, and it’s reaching epidemic proportions.

Willful blindness started life as a legal concept; it holds that when there are things you could know and should know, but manage not to know, you’re still responsible. The idea was central to the conviction of Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay in the Enron trial. But it’s more than just a legal idea: it’s the bad habit that lies at the heart of far too many businesses.

The full text can be read in this site:http://www.bnet.com/blog/business-strategy/bank-of-america-is-not-the-only-company-that-should-fear-wikileaks/957?promo=713&tag=nl.e713

We believe there is WILLFUL BLINDNESS going on regarding the Rapu-Rapu mine of LG, Kores and MSC. Those working in and for these companies plus those in the Philippine government who have adopted willful blindness as a course of action should take heed because one day the truth will have its day in court. The mine will soon close and those responsible will have to reckon with the judgment of the people and history.

Yeonpeong and Rapu-Rapu Islands

By now, the South Korean executives of LG and Kores should know how it feels to have one’s island destroyed. Or do they care? On November 23, North Korea destroyed Yeonpeong Island after South Korea provoked the former with a military exercise. It is the height of absurdity for South Korea to complain about the North’s attack while it was the South that risked trouble by displaying its war arsenal to the enemy. It is only proper for the South Korean Defense Minister to resign because he approved of the war exercise conducted by his country. Nobody lights a match within 50 feet of a gasoline lorry or inside a warehouse of dynamites. You do not whet your knife before the very eyes of a neighbor with whom you have a quarrel. You do that and you only have yourself to blame.

LG and Kores own a total of 70% of Korea Malaysia Philippines Resources Inc. (the renamed Lafayette Philippines Inc.), the same company that owns in turn RRMI and RRPI. KMPRI is destroying Rapu-Rapu Island. Our boycott campaign of LG products is therefore an appropriate reply.

If war breaks out again in Korea, Filipinos should not help the South. We helped them in the 1950s but look at their act of gratitude – they are destroying our Rapu-Rapu Island, our version of Yeonpeong. These South Korean executives should pack up, close the mine, clean the contamination and enlist in their army to face Kim Jong Il.

RRMI and RRPI Employment of CAFGUs to Guard Creeks Continues

Reports from Rapu-Rapu Island by residents confirm the continued presence of members of the paramilitary Citizen Armed Forces for Geographical Units (CAFGU) in the mine site and creeks. The employment of CAFGUs was legalized through an executive order during the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, author of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 when she was a senator. The public is not allowed to freely go to the creeks. Members of the NGO Sagip Isla Sagip Kapwa report that whenever outsiders approach the creeks, warning shots are fired.

Violent incidents involving CAFGUs include the arrest on July 26, 2006 of a Greenpeace activist, David Andrade who was merely gathering soil and water samples in Mirikpitik Creek. On November 16, 2008, Jessie Ecleo was found dead in Sitio Mirikpitik, Barangay Pagcolbon. The suspect, CAFGU Daniel Sumbilon Bongca of San Pablo, Zamboanga del Sur, admitted that he hit the victim with a lead pipe at the head causing instant death. (See Rapu-Rapu police blotter) Bongca surrendered to the police soon after the incident but today he is at large.

RRMI and RRPI claim that they employ guards in the creeks to prevent anti-mining activists from pouring poison into them. This is a lame excuse because those guards are not able to prevent contamination of the creeks. It is like preventing people from entering a leprosarium not to contain the disease and protect the public but to prevent tinea flava from entering the compound. If the CAFGU presence is intended to preserve the clean condition of the creeks, then why are mining executives unwilling to dip into the water there, even with armed guards? It is obvious that the guards have kept away the activists but not the contamination understandably since the latter comes from the mine site. The truth is that those CAFGUs are there to prevent activists from taking water and soil samples which can be used as evidence in a fair court of law.

The CAFGUs also prevent environmentalists from taking still photos and videos of the latest condition of the creeks. If there is nothing to hide and instead there is evidence of clean operations to show, then why should the public be prevented from viewing the creeks? Opening the creeks to public scrutiny will finally silence the opposition but only if they are clean. Since they are not, the option of RRMI and RRPI is to seal the creeks off.

RRMI and RRPI cannot produce the still photos and videos themselves because there will be questions of credibility. In addition, to clean portions of the creeks for a few hours of photo operation would require ten or even twenty years of scrubbing the banks and creek beds. To do that, they need to suspend mining operations. That option will diminish their profits. So, why clean the creeks? For them it is less costly to hire CAFGUs and prevent eyewitnesses from gathering evidence. They can only arrange tours inside the mine site and show areas they have pre-cleaned and claim their operations are environment-friendly. What need to be visited are areas outside the mine site impacted by mining. Visitors should also interview the people in the island and mainland Albay (there are 14,000 fishermen among them) suffering from loss of livelihood since 2005, the same year when mining went full blast in Rapu-Rapu. The truth about the creeks is crucial to the mining issue because they are the link between the mining operation and the 95% drop in fish catch in Albay Gulf.

Indeed, Rapu-Rapu mining is responsible . . . for severe environmental damage to the island and economic injustice to the people.