Profile: MANKAYAN, BENGUET

Transcription

1 Profile: MANKAYAN, BENGUET Mankayan is one of the 13 municipalities of Benguet province in northern Luzon. It is inhabited by the Kankanaey indigenous peoples group, with a population of 34,563 (2007 Census) and land area of 13, 563 hectares. Agriculture remains the primary source of livelihood of the people. Since 1903, Benguet province has hosted 14 mining companies. Some of these mines have closed down while others have continued. One of the two presently operating mines is the Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company or LCMCo (operating since 1936) located in Mankayan. Decades of LCMCo operations resulted in massive environmental destruction, loss of livelihood and people s lives, serious health conditions, displacement, and violations of workers rights and the collective rights of indigenous peoples over their land and resources. Underground block-caving operations by the LCMCo have induced massive ground subsidence and collapse. The land surface in populated areas is sinking, causing damage to buildings, farms and property. In July 1999, Pablo Gomez, a villager in Colalo, Mankayan, was killed when he was suddenly swept away in a landslide along with the the Colalo Primary School building. 71 million cubic feet of earth gave way beneath him, covering and destroying 14 hectares of farming land. In 2009, another massive ground subsidence occurred at the town center of Mankayan, destroying the Mankayan National High School and putting in danger residential houses. In these two disastrous events, the LCMCo denied any responsibility and claimed that these are natural occurrences. Lepanto s mine wastes are dumped in tailings dams. Spills from the dams directly contaminate the downstream rivers. An Environmental Investigatory Mission (EIM) in September 2002 indicated that heavy metal content (lead, cadmium and copper) was elevated in the soil and waters downstream from the Lepanto mine. The downstream impact of tailings disposal is that along a 25-kilometer stretch of the Abra River, some 465 hectares of riceland have been washed out. People of Mankayan remember the Abra River before the mine. It was deep and narrow, just 5 meters wide, full of fish and surrounded by verdant rice paddies. Now there is a wide gorge of barren land on either side of the polluted river. Fruit trees and animals have died from the poisoned water and rice crops are stunted. Contamination

2 of water, soil and air contributes to increased toxic build-up in people s bodies. Asthma and other respiratory problem often affect local communities as well as mine workers. Not only are livelihood sources and people s health affected, but so is the general biodiversity damaged, causing breakdowns in the food web. Once-common birds and tree species have disappeared. In 2003 and 2005, Lepanto mineworkers staged a strike due to the company s continued violations of workers rights to safety, just wages and benefits. The non-recognition of workers rights by the company has worsened at present. Regular workers were laid off and replaced with, or re-hired as, contractual workers. Lepanto s Far Southeast Copper Gold project is one of the priority projects of the Philippine government. On September 2010, Lepanto forged an Option Agreement with Goldfields, one of the leading gold producers in South Africa. Goldfields has 18 months option for 60% stake of LCMCo s Far Southeast Project at a cost of $340 million. As of August 2011, Goldfields drilling has completed 17 holes at a depth of 22,000 meters. Drilling results confirmed the presence of highly valuable vertically and laterally extensive ore body. Lepanto is presently processing several mining expansion projects covering huge tracts of lands in Benguet and nearby provinces of Mountain Province and Abra. IMPACTS OF LCMC S OPERATIONS TO INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN MANKAYAN The mining issues can be summarized into three: a) land and resources ownership and benefit, b) just wages and benefits from operations of the company, and c) over all environmental destruction in terms of siltation, pollution, and health hazards. The issues are comprehensive and multi sectoral. Thus, the peoples actions has been likewise. It is generally issues of indigenous peoples but also as workers, as women, as peasants. The interplay is spelled out in the continuing struggle. The following chronology profiles key issues and events in the continuing saga and story of Mankayan and the continuing operations of the Company (LCMC). 1.Land ownership and benefit from mineral resources The basic issue in Mankayan since colonial times has always been the ownership of land and benefit from the gold and copper mineral resources. The mining claims, or land grab, of early American prospectors were opposed, especially those that encroached into areas actively being mined traditionally by the community. But the people were no match to the full application of laws favoring foreign capitalists. These claims were later consolidated into the 309 mining claims controlled by Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company covering 4,949 hectares. The issue of ownership was again highlighted in the recent past with the expansion of operations of Lepanto following its discovered gold ore veins. The community barricaded the company s expansion because it would compete with the people s agriculture livelihood. But like in the past, the law is on the side of the mining company. Even the Indigenous People s Rights Act (IPRA) and its provision on Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) are inutile. FPIC was even used to further bolster the company s claims over the people s ownership, by the government certifying that FPIC is not applicable because the Mining Company has prior property rights.

3 Such double talk and speaking with a forked tongue indeed, as IPRA and FPIC is supposed to uphold indigenous peoples rights to land and resources! This is a continuing issue. Just wages and benefits as well as workers right to unionize The first workers strike in Lepanto was in 1949 when the company did not recognize the workers union and did not respond to their demand for higher wages and benefits. The union was eventually coopted by the company, that for about four decades, the Lepanto Employees Union (LEU), a yellow labor union, operated only within bounds allowed by the company. During the fourth decade, there were two attempts by workers to organize a genuine labor union (1981 and 1986), and one attempt to challenge LEU through certification elections towards setting up a new union (1989). In 2003, more than 1,500 workers waged a strike that lasted one month effectively crippling operations; on issues of reasonable wages, fringe benefits, and favorable working conditions. The company agreed to negotiate so that operations could resume. The workers gains on these issues were embodied in a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) by the Company and the Union. This was the first strike in more than 50 years. Workers empowerment was even more remarkable in 2005 with the record breaking strike of 1,900 workers that lasted three months. The same issues of wages, benefits, and working conditions were raisedthe strike was finally settled with gains for the workers on the issues raised; but with the gut hitting sacrifice of termination of all 19 Union Officers that the Company demanded in exchange for the settlement. To their credit, all officers accepted the challenge of termination - for them to sacrifice their employment for the greater benefit of all the other workers and their families. Militarization also became an issue during the strike because of the use of regular Philippine Army soldiers and Philippine National Police to intimidate, try to break the picket lines, and otherwise harass the striking workers, their families and supporters. Aside from regular military men in uniform,they also sent agents in civilian clothes. Siltation, health hazards, subsidence, pollution of Abra river and tributaries, and over all environmental destruction The following chronology of key events shows the profile of these related issues over a 50 year period: Petition of Cervantes and Quirino people in Ilocos Sur, downriver outside the Cordillera, against pollution of the Abra river that passes through their areas. Until now the same issue is raised as pollution and siltation has destroyed their rice fields and polluted their river. 1970s. In addition to the above petitioners, more towns downriver along the Abra River in the province of Ilocos Sur, Abra, and Mountain Province join petition compensation, solution to pollution, or at most stop to mining operations. for

4 1988. Petition and dialogue by Cabiten and Colalo people (adjacent to the mines), to stop copper ore dryer because of effects on people, animals, plants. The company did not do anything. In 1989 the revolutionary New Peoples Army blasted the copper ore dryer Barricade by Colalo people at Tailings Dam 5-A to oppose its construction. Some were arrested. In the ensuing dialogue with the Company, government forced some to sign the Memorandum of Agreement even though it would be to their (Colalo) disadvantage Petition and dialogue of Sapid people with Company regarding their lands that were subsiding/sinking. The Company gave some remuneration for crop loss but not for the value of the land. A small assistance was given for house construction and a relocation site was identified. But the site was controversial. Also at this time, Tabbac people barricaded against Company drilling in their area because it would affect their water source Continuation of successful barricade in Tabbac and it expanded to Bulalacao where people barricaded all drilling operations in their area. The company filed cases against leaders of the community. A major landslide occurred in Colalao so the people petitioned the Company for remuneration. Municipal officials mediated the dialogue between the people and the Company, but the Company would not accept any responsibility. There was also a congressional inquiry initiated by Congresswoman Ducut. Also, the University of the Philippines National Institute of Geological Sciences (UPNIGS) conducted an independent investigation in the same year the results corroborated residents opinion on large scale mining being the primary cause of the massive land subsidence. The Institute further stated that: man-made causes, primary of which is LCMC s mining activities, caused the sinking and erosion Independent investigation on Colalo landslide and ground subsidence in Poblacion undertaken by University of the Philippines, which determined that mining operations is one of the causes of the landslides and ground subsidence. Two Congressional Inquiries conducted later, affirmed these findings; but the Company was adamant and continued to declare that it is not to blame Colalo people did not allow JVO, an NGO being used by the mining Company, to implement a Community Development Program in their area. Consultation meetings of affected peasant communities and Mine workers held on how to cooperate in solving their problems related to the mining Campany. There could be contradictions in their positions, like the peasant demand to stop the mines because it destroys agriculture livelihood, conflicts with the workers need for jobs. But from their continuing consultations, they were able always to find points of unity, like the Company can continue its present level of operations but no more expansion, and it must justly compensate its workers Unity Pact as basis of unity for all peoples in the affected communities that was later formalized as an Alliance to make the Company liable for the damage it caused to

5 agriculture, rivers, rice fields, water sources. The alliance agreed to campaign for the end of the Company s operations. So much irreparable damage has been done, and this is even continuing. The elders organization AM-IN was also formed The inter-provincial, multisectoral Mankayan-Quirino-Tadian-Cervantes Danggayan a Gunglo was formed in Colalo, Mankayan, as an organized response of communities to the continuing problems and issues caused by Lepanto s operations for over 70 years LCMC dumps asbestos waste from its head office in Makati in Barangay Sapid, enraging the communities and local government officials The people of Mankayan set up a barricade in Tabeo to prevent the drilling of LCMC partner Goldfields, a South African mining company. In the course of one year, community leaders and members unlawfully arrested by company security and the Philippine National Police, in at 3 failed attempts to dismantle the barricade. The company also filed criminal cases to at least 100 community folk, including minors and the deceased. In January 2013, Goldfields finally pulled out its drilling equipment out of Tabeo.