Progress with a Conscience: Mining in the Philippines

Without a doubt, the Philippines is a mineral rich country. As such, mining is a big industry. The mining industry is a very powerful force in Philippine politics. Indeed, some politicians are themselves engaged in the mining industry.

Every year, a panoply of mining accidents are reported all across the Philippines. Every year, at least 20 typhoons ravage the Philippines. Every year, the interrelated effects of mining and typhoons are played out by the deaths of thousands of rural Filipinos who are buried alive by landslides caused by denuded forests which in turn makes mountainous areas ripe for disasters as trees that hold the soil in place are cut indiscriminately to make way for open-pit mining or similar mining related activities. Not to mention the unabated illegal logging that seems to permeate the higher rungs of Philippine society.

If mining is to be truly beneficial to the country, the following questions must first be answered:

1. Does it destroy the local environs?
2. Does it benefit the people in the towns and communities in which it is conducted?
3. Does it provide long term benefits both to the communities in which is is done and the country as a whole? If it does, does the benefits outweight the disadvantages?

The aforesaid questions must be honestly and thoroughly answered if mining is to be a truly responsible and sustainable activity. Otherwise, more people will die as that those that befell the residents of Cagayan de Oro City and Iligan City in the wake of Typhoon Sendong in 2011 or those that died after Typhoon Pablo ravaged Compostela Valley in Mindanao in 2012.

Thrusts for development must and should always be coupled with a sense of responsibility to the environment and a commitment to the local residents for their long term growth and benefit. That is progress with a conscience. That is true progress - one that is sustainable, responsible and progressive.