A Poisoned Paradise

By: Eldred Willey

The Philippines has vast mineral wealth.  Western mining companies want to exploit it and in return offer money that is badly needed. But what is the cost to the people and the environment?  An aid worker went to find out.

Mindoro is one of the most beautiful islands of the Philippines.  And it looks as if it may stay that way.  Its people are currently celebrating an important victory against a mining company which was bidding to turn their ocean jewel into an open-cast pit.

Spanish invaders in the sixteenth century christened the island Mina de Oro (goldmine), but of greater value is nickel, as Norwegian prospectors discovered in 1997.  Unknown to them, however, the island would yield not just nickel, but also Alamin.  Alamin (the Alliance Against the Mine) is a new alloy composed of people power, the Catholic Church and the business elite.  It is strong enough to cut through not just corrupt politics, but also big money.

Icing on the cake

Landing on Mindoro, I met my guides Nel and Tita de Guzman, a gentle Catholic couple who work among the poor.  They introduced me first to Evelyn Cacha, who chairs Alamin, at the hotel which her sister runs on the island.  She typifies the caliber of the alliance: a graduate of the University of the Philippines who spent three years studying in the United States before returning home to become a successful businesswoman.  In 1999, she told me, she made her first foray.  With Fr. Edu Garriguez, representing the Catholic Church, she visited Oslo.  “We went to testify that a ‘pro-mining petition’ had been obtained by deceit,” she said.  “Government officials thought they were signing endorsements of development projects and receipts for colouring books and crayons.”

Destruction begins

That same year, Crew Development Corporation, based in Vancouver, bought out the Norwegian prospectors.  Crew describes itself as a “socially responsible company”, and was soon providing school buildings, electricity, a clinic and a tribal hall for the indigenous Mangyan people, whose consent was required if the mine was to go ahead.  This munificence (albeit deductible against any future tax) gained the hearts of many politicians, and in January 2001 Crew won an agreement to begin mining.

It had not, however, reckoned on Alamin.  “We are kind of formidable,” said Evelyn. “They may have the money to buy the media, but they don’t know the territory. We’re fighting on our own terrain.”

Pro vs anti-mining

A display of people power brought more than 20,000 demonstrators onto the streets, and when Heherson Alvarez, Secretary for the Environment, visited Mindoro in July 2001, protestors outnumbered the pro-mining welcome party by 50 to one.  Three days later Alvarez revoked the agreement.  The provincial government completed the rout by imposing a 25-year moratorium on large-scale mining.

Crew, however, is challenging both decisions through the press.  On 23 February, the lead editorial of the Philippine Star amplified the “plaintive cry” of more that 100 “sun-browned farmers” from the proposed mining area around Victoria, who had arrived in the capital to complain about the grounding of their golden goose.

Money talks

Our own visit to Victoria left a different impression.  Entering the town, we passed under a banner which read:  “We are against mining by Crew. We love nature.”  Everything seemed to be going rusty, from the jeepneys to the corrugated roofs.  The roads were potholed and Japanese cars were conspicuously absent. It was easy to understand why money speaks loudly here.

At the Rotary Club we met Alamin’s local leader, Jorge Madarang – a confident landowner with a thin frame and thin lips sucking a cigarette holder.  “Dust from the mine would blight our mango orchards,” he argued, “and erosion would come down over the rice paddies.”  I asked him about Crew’s approach.  “It was financial blitz,” he said, “Fortunately for us, they chose the wrong strategy.  The people they bought were not credible.”

The trick

Napoleon Ramos, a local politician, was obviously an exception.  “I myself was offered a bribe,” he declared, speaking in Tagalog.  Anger overtook him, and I had to wait a few minutes for the next interpretation:  “A representative of Crew passed me P7,000.00 in an envelope.  The following day he told me it was a first installment.  I could have P13,000.00 more if I mobilized a certain number of people.”  The company, he alleged, was offering each participant P200.00 – a day’s wage.  “And they did not even realize they were going to a pro-mining rally.”  Mr. Ramos returned the original 7,000.00 pesos.

We heard a similar story at Pinamalayan, a coastal town of 70,000 people where Crew intends to build its processing plant.  At the municipal hall we found a desk occupied by a large golden nameplate which read: “Hon. Wilfredo L. Hernandez, Sr., Mayor”.  Its owner, when he appeared, proved a good match: a big man, given to waving his fists in the air.  I asked whether Crew had tried to win him over.  “Yes, they did offer me something,” he said, “but I love my people too much.  Crew would have destroyed our whole environment.”

Paradise that was

The company’s proposal is to extract the nickel with sulphuric acid, and dump the waste on the seabed near the fishing village of Pili.  In Canada the process is illegal.  Palm-bordered Pili is the Filipino version of Dante’s earthly paradise, with the same echo of the sea.  Children play on the beach among the fishing boats, the bright shells and coral fragments.  In the village a joyful campaigner, Rosalyn Mepasco, was cradling her first-born.  She told us how during pregnancy she had distributed comics showing the effects of mining in the nearby island of Marinduque.  In this case the prizes were copper and gold, and the company was Marcopper – controlled by the Canadian giant Placer Dome.

‘Natural’ disaster

It was a four-hour ride on the outrigger which floats rice and fighting cocks across the Marinduque, with a few passengers squeezed in between.  On the other side Beth Manggol, a young woman who leads the environmental arm of Catholic Social Action, was waiting to meet us.  The first of several disasters, she recounted, occurred during a typhoon in 1993, when Marcopper’s tailings pond collapsed into the River Mogpog.  The torrent swept away houses in the town below and drowned two children.  Marcopper called it a natural disaster, but offered “aid” to victims – to a maximum of  £12 each (equivalent to about P720)

Death to paradise

Today the silted Mogpog trickles a sickly yellow-green, and on its banks coconut trees wither.  Marcopper’s mountain shrine has become the anti-type of Ezekiel’s temple: the water issuing from its threshold brings death wherever it flows.  “Nothing lives in the river now,” said Beth.  “Not even a microorganism.”

It took a second spill into the River Boac before Marcopper was forced to leave.  At the mouth of the Boac we came across a languid group of fisher families in ragged clothes, squatting by the shore.  Previously, they told us, they used to harvest a unique specie of crab from these waters; now it was extinct.  The mangroves and mussels had died, too.  What few fish remained were hard to sell because people suspected them of being contaminated.

In the nearby village of Tapigue, many children were suffering from aplastic anemia, which their doctor, Marilla Maramba, links with the spill.  Placer Dome contends it is caused by malnutrition.

Waste and hazard

We continued around the island, passing massive rusting pipes.  Once these had carried tailings down to Calancan Bay, dumping on the corals to form a seven-kilometer causeway, which Marcopper has incongruously planted with pines.  As we walked to the end, I asked Beth whether she was at least pleased about the trees.  “No, not really.”  “Why not?” “We want them to remove the causeway.”

I looked back: 200 million tons of grey, crumbing cement, full of lead, mercury and cyanide.  “Where would they put it?”  I asked.  “They can take it back to Canada.”  Around our feet, on the surface of the poison, gold dust which the miners had missed glinted mockingly in the sunlight.

Slow death of poison

A little way up a dirt track, Wilson Manuba, a 30-year-old fisherman, was squatting sideways at the door of his home.  Some years before, he told us, he had stepped on a thorn in the bay.  Now his foot was a horrific open wound, from which his wife picked worms.  The hospital said that heavy metal poisoning prevented healing.  They advised amputation, but Wilson feared this would only hasten the corruption of his whole body.  Our photographer had to leave because of the stench.

The poisoning, says Placer Dome, is caused by naturally occurring elements.  The company denies responsibility.  In any case, it has sold its shares in Marcopper.

Further on we pulled up by an idyllic house made of coconut and bamboo, and stepping inside, I noticed something folded on a low shelf.  I looked again and realized it was a boy.

Life long gone

Roden Reynoso was already half skeleton, his thin limbs missing much of their skin.  He sat at first dead still, then – blink, swallow, blink.  I smiled, but he was unable to smile back.  The fingers were missing from one hand; on the other they were shriveled and grey.  His back was pigmented silver.

They had moved to Calancan Bay last summer, recounted his mother.  In October Roden developed sores on his feet.  He was six years old, she said.  After much coaxing, she drew from her son a squeak of a word.  With a deformed stump he scratched the sores on his chest.  I met his eyes: very tired, and past tears.