Tribal chieftains hit NPA attack on mining firm in Mati

From the Philippine News Agency (May 21): Tribal chieftains hit NPA attack on mining firm in Mati

The recent attack on a mining firm operating in Mati City, Davao Oriental did not only destroy millions worth of equipment but also deprived the local residents of their livelihoods.

Two tribal chieftains criticized the New People’s Army (NPA) for attacking the Mil-Oro Mining Corporation, saying that a number of indigenous peoples in the area lost their jobs and livelihood opportunities that they derive from the said mining company.

Fully armed men attacked and burned equipment of Mil-Oro last May 5. Mil-Oro’s site is situated in the villages of Macambol and Cabuaya in Mati City.

Days after the attack, the NPA in Southern Mindanao issued a statement admitting responsibility to the attack.

The NPA said the attack was staged as a means of punishment to Mil-Oro due to the alleged environmental destruction it caused in the area and the displacement of the people.

But for tribal chieftains Heracleo Felizarta and Renato Lemente, the effects of the attack are detrimental to the livelihood of the IPs in the area than the punishment that the NPAs claimed they carried against the mining company.

“More than 800 villagers who are employed by the mining firm are now directly affected by the destruction made by the NPAs,” Felizarta and Lemente said.

The attack, they added, also devastated the small village enterprises of IPs in said villages.

“The operations of the company has resulted in better purchasing power of the residents, but the attack has again brought them to where they were before, or at the time the company entered the villages,” Felizarta said.

Lemente added that the attack has again triggered the reliance of some residents on illegal activities like illegal logging and illegal fishing.

“During the operations, since their income was better, they forgot these illegal activities,” Lemente explained.

He also pointed out that most of those who were working in the company were those who used to rely in said illegal activities.

Those who were not in illegal activities also survive through farming and fishing, he said.

In a separate statement, Mil-Oro contradicted the claim of the NPAs, saying that a multi-sectoral body and a multi-partite monitoring team composed of government representatives and independent organizations has been monitoring the company’s mining operations.

“On the claim that the company is destroying the Hamiguitan Protected Area, which is a World Heritage Site, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) noted that the company’s present site of operations is about six kilometers from the buffer zone of the protected area which the government has set up. By foot, residents said that it would take one to walk nine hours from the operations site to the buffer zone,” Mil-Oro said.

“What the public should know is that the company has partnered both with the government agencies and its host communities in ensuring that it helps protect the environment as it even relinquished about 7,000 hectares of its mining claims to the protected area and that it has planted about 500,000 trees, both forest and fruit-bearing, to ensure the forest areas are sustained,” Felizarta said.

The tribal chieftain added that even the water discharges of the company are within the allowable limits set by the DENR.

“The mining operations did not affect our farming activities because the site and our farms are divided by ridges and that there is no water body that could bring silt to our agricultural activities,” he said.

Both Felizarta and Lemente also told reporters that Mil-Oro has been supporting the other needs of residents in of Macambol and Cabuaya, particularly in education.

They said that the company built seven school buildings and is planning to add two more this year and distributed school packages benefiting 2,000 school children in five schools in the host communities.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/989606