This one is a story currently under construction… I need to do a couple more interviews before filing a full report … hopefully in the next few days.
Berong Nickel Mining Corporation apparently has set aside some P14 M (roughly US$300,000) as royalty payment to the tribes living around their mining sites in Quezon, Palawan. The money, supposedly escrowed in a bank, represents the 1 percent royalty shares of the tribes as mandated by the Philippine IPRA law.
The thing is, the otherwise culturally monolithic Tagbanua tribe has split into two factions – one is pro, the other is anti mining.
The pro-mining group apparently wants the company to just give them the money in hard cash. What can you expect? They have no concept of capital investment, hence their only perceived solution is to equally divide the manna amongst themselves.
The anti-mining group, meanwhile, is hard put trying to keep its ranks intact. So far, they don’t want any part of the money. They just want to be spared by the bulldozers.
It seems neither the mining company nor the government has figured out a way to minimize if not completely insulate the indigenous communities from the cultural disruptions brought about by the country’s attraction policy towards mining.
Its a sad sight. The mining company is trying to look for solutions and yet there is nothing in sight. It recently formed an association of pro-mining tribes (thus furthering the division!!!) supposedly to organize the process of transferring the royalty to this group. Of course, the company controls the foundation (by de facto, if not legally or in paper). Tsk tsk…
November 5, 2007 at 12:14 pm
The people of Palawan should know, if they don’t already know, that their province hosts maybe some 80% of the remaining 3% of the country’s old-growth rainforest, and take great pride in this. At this rate, the entry of strip mining or any form of extractive industry that will threaten the forest cover must be NON-NEGOTIABLE. The forests cannot and must not be exchanged for any “royalty” or some frivolous “social preparation” or “softening” program by the mining companies.
The saddest thing that can happen is if it’s the Palawenos themselves, through the acts of greedy provincial and local leaders, who will sell out to the mining lobby. Mining is not the be all and end all of anti-poverty and/or development objectives. Sustainable ecotourism is a great alternative. We all know that Boracay has been choking on all that tourism that’s pouring into the tiny island even way before reasonable infrastructure were put in. Palawan can take in 10-20 times more than that and not even experience a bellyache.
If these mining companies are so confident and proud of their so-called social amelioration and environmental mitigation programs, let them go and do it where damage has already been done by them or their predecessors and let’s see if these programs can indeed reverse the downtrend. But don’t try to fix Palawan because it ain’t broken, OK? So stay out, for heaven’s sake!
November 24, 2007 at 4:29 pm
You mentioned tourism as an alternative. Boracay is milking its 4-km of beach for way over its worth and they are getting over a million tourists a year in traffic. We have places like San Vicente’s Long Beach which can rival Boracay’s endowments, and it is over 12 kilometers long, and yet it is one of the least accessible places and therefore untapped for its economic potential. Talk about priorities eh.
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March 6, 2008 at 6:16 am
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