The New People’s Army’s well executed raids last Monday on three mining firms in Claver, Surigao del Norte razing a smelting plant, 28 heavy equipment, 132 dump trucks and 9 barges has provoked all kinds of reactions.

The incident spotlights the dire consequences of mining operations in the area since 1989 that should jolt the government and the Supreme Court into taking urgent positive action. The policy of opening up the country to foreign mining firms needs rethinking. Beefing up security around the mines will not solve the problems that prompted the NPA attacks.

More compelling are the issues raised by the indigenous peoples and environmentalists against the mining companies including the three that were raided Taganito Mining Corporation, Taganito HPAL Nickel Corporation and Platinum Group Metals Corporation.

The companies are accused of
1. Degrading the environment
2. Dispossessing the communities of their lands and water resources
3. Ruining their cultural heritage
4. Withholding royalty fees due to them

Mr R Luis Flores researcher editor has blogged an incisively critical piece titled, “The Ugly Side of Surigao del Norte. It encloses a Google Maps satellite image of Claver’s coastal mountain area with a strikingly reddish hue. This is because, Flores points out the entire coastal mountain range is denuded of its forest cover.”

Mr Flores said that “Claver supposedly has the largest iron mineral deposit in the world and one can surmise that this denudation of the mountains is partly due to the mining activities that has gone on in the past years.”

(Sourced from www.philstar.com)