Conference renews push for Peoples’ Mining Bill

Conference renews push for Peoples’ Mining Bill

By MARYA SALAMAT
Bulatlat.com
Sidebar: John Arcilla, actor, environmentalist attends Peoples’ Mining Conference
MANILA – “A hundred years after exporting our precious timber, have we become rich?” This is the question Kabataan Partylist Rep. Raymond Palatino threw to the participants of the 3rd Peoples Mining Conference happening until today in Tagaytay City.

The conference has drawn nearly 200 environmentalists from all over the Philippines who, in an earlier regional sharing of mining updates, have already detailed how, on the contrary, most ordinary citizens are becoming poorer and more miserable with every operation of huge mining corporations because of massive resource extraction in their midst.

Most lament how, for a pittance or nothing, they are left to contend with the damages to their sources of livelihood caused by denuded mountains and forests while huge corporations are repatriating billions of dollars in profits, Rep. Palatino, and earlier that day Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño and Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan, were talking to an audience who is evidently already eager for an alternative law that would correct the disastrous Mining Act of 1995. In fact, the alternative mining policy coauthored by the progressive party list groups in Congress “is not just a proposal of the said partylist groups,” said Palatino. House Bill 4315, or the Peoples Mining Bill, he said, “is a product of broad consultations in many regions, and through this, it embodies peoples’ aspirations in how mining can benefit the people.”.... MORE

Source:  Bulatlat.com

URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2012/03/02/conference-renews-push-for-peoples%E2%80%99-mining-bill/