(Philippines) March of the mines sees islanders facing loss of ancestral homeland - Guardian

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

March of the mines sees islanders facing loss of ancestral homeland

President's 'war on poverty' has multinationals eyeing mineral
and metal reserves

Ian MacKinnon in Mindoro, Philippines
The Guardian Monday August 20 2007

For farmers like Ramil Baldo, making a living has never been easy.
Venturing out from his bamboo shack, which lacks electricity, running
water and sanitation, he harvests whatever he can. Mainly it is
bananasvand other fruits from the jungle-clad uplands on the Philippine
island of Mindoro. Only a stunning mountainous panorama above and a
river bubbling below his hilltop settlement offset the privations.

But it appears things may soon become a lot harder for the 34-year-
old farmer and at least 5,000 other Mangyans given the plans of a
British based multinational mining company to remove residents from
the land they have farmed for six centuries, land that houses their
forebears' sacred ancestral burial grounds.

-snip-

But the land is also a key part of the plan of the Philippines president,
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to stake the country's future on mining to
win the "war on poverty". Immense, barely tapped reserves of minerals
and precious metals offer a rich seam of wealth.

Applications for 2,000 mines await a green light. With backing from
the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, the Philippines liberalised
its mining sector regulations in 1995, giving generous tax breaks and
imposing few restrictions on foreign ownership, so as to attract
investment by multinational mining companies.

Legal challenges to the legislation failed despite a chequered
environmental record and litany of mining disasters.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/aug/20/endangeredhabitats.conservation

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The article goes on to detail the environmental risks and costs
of mining in the Philippines.