Ateneo de Davao University's video: An Ordinance Passed in Treachery

By: Fr. Joel E. Tabora, S.J. The news that the Provincial Board of South Cotabato passed an ordinance last May, 16, 2022 lifting the 12-year-old ban on open-pit mining is profoundly disturbing. As President of Ateneo de Davao University that is committed to the welfare and service of Mindanao, I would like to register my opposition to this treacherous act. I say treacherous because the ordinance was passed with practically no prior public notice and with indecent swiftness in the immediate aftermath of the last elections. It denied the minority the opportunity to register its disapproval. It was passed despite previous assurances that adequate consultations would be held prior to any decisive vote. Instead of honest consultations the ordinance was passed in guilt-laden haste. There are three reasons for opposing the ordinance. First, the damage it will cause to environment and the people. It would mean the Sagittarius Mines Incorporated, allegedly the largest mining group in Southeast Asia, can now proceed to full operation without any legal impediment. According to the project’s manifest information, it is to extract an estimated 2.94 billion tons of metallic resources, 15 million tons of copper, and 17.6 million ounces of gold using open-pit mine technology. They will lop off the entire mountain top about the size of 1,000 football fields and a depth of two Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other. This will endanger primarily the water sources of farmers and households around the area risking at least three watersheds and five river systems that feed almost a third of Mindanao. Since the open-pit mine will have to clear thousands of hectares of forested land for its final mining area, it would necessarily destroy its rich flora and fauna. With this, Mindanao’s food security. Tons upon tons of regularly-produced palay will be lost due to this project. Some 2,900 families of indigenous B’laans shall be displaced. Second, the lies being propagated by mining companies in a shifty national season of lies! This move to amend is premised on the allegation that the project shall generate substantial revenues for the government in a post-pandemic situation of economic recovery. For all its messianic allure, we reiterate that mining has contributed only an average of 0.91% to the Philippine Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 2000-2009, peaking only in 2007 at 1.44%. Mining contributed only 1.7% to the excise taxes of the country. Clearly, the SMI Project is not enough to pay the Eleven Trillion Nine Hundred Twenty Billion Pesos (P11,920,000,000,000.) national debt. Nor should we naively equate investment with benefit. While the investment appears to be tectonic in billions, only a pittance of that benefits local communities for the short term while harming the larger community in the long term. As I speak, while the executives of local and foreign mining concerns salivate on their estimated private profits, the vaunted contribution to the common weal is unsubstantiated while mining communities still live below poverty line. Lastly, my opposition is based on the Catholic Social teaching of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si. We are called to be guardians of our common home – created by God for the peoples and biodiverse flora and fauna of Mindanao. Twelve years ago, the Provincial Board gifted South Cotabato with a commitment to conserve its natural endowment by legislating a prohibition against extractive and destructive opencast mining activities. By doing so, they were not merely performing a legislative function of temporary validity. As stewards of the environment, they were acting as keepers of our common home – exercising an intergenerational responsibility that we must all embrace not only in the name of the present generation but also in the name of generations yet unborn (Oposa vs. Factoran, GR No 101083, July 30, 1993). In this sacred and morally-binding context, we express our hope, our plea, indeed, our demand, that South Cotabato continue to be the vanguard protectors of Tampakan. In the Creator’s name, challenge the procedural and substantive flaws in the treacherous passage of this ordinance!