‘Think about it: when a responsible mining operation moves part of our earth to extract valuable minerals, it does its best to return the disturbed part of the land to what it was beforehand, with local tree species planted so that fauna soon returns.’
IF there was one thing I will always remember about the late DENR Secretary Gina Lopez, it was this: she was almost as unmoving as Mt. Everest when it came to the matter of mining. I say almost, because Mt. Everest is not unmoving; it straddles an area known for quakes, huge ones as well as smaller ones, and I am sure geologists will tell us that Mt. Everest moves, even if infinitesimally, because Earth’s plates move.
But I say almost also because the good secretary turned out to be less unmoving than many thought, when confronted with the real examples of mining operations that do their best to adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Philippine Mining Act and all other laws, regulations and ordinances related to mining. While she remained in the main adamantly opposed to mining as a business anywhere in the Philippines, she was humble enough to concede that a few stood out, perhaps as exceptions to what she saw as the rule — that mining per se is destructive of the environment and should not be countenanced.
And that’s where the title of this piece comes from — from a comment the late secretary made after touring the operations of Rio Tuba Nickel (RTN) and Coral Bay Nickel, located next to each other in barangay Rio Tuba in the Municipality of Bataraza, at the southernmost tip of the main island of Palawan province.
“Pwede pala!”
For someone like Gina Lopez to say this of a mining operation is not only flattering; it’s earth-shattering (no pun intended). What better “seal of good housekeeping” can a mining operation wish for than to have the staunchest anti-mining secretary of the DENR ever to be installed say this of your operations?
The folks of Rio Tuba were of mixed emotions after hearing the good secretary utter those words, knowing where she was coming from. The men and women of RTN have been laboring for decades (export of ore to Japan began in 1977) to ensure that their operations are as efficient as possible so that the least disturbance of the environment occurs. But while RTN’s operations have been recognized, numerous times and both here and abroad, for such care and consideration for their working environment and their communities, many an employee took it personally when Sec. Gina seemed to wage an unrelenting, no-prisoners-taken war on the industry as a whole, a war that lumped the less responsible with the more responsible ones. For her to recognize their work, finally, as an example of a responsible mining operation, was thus seen as a triumph, as a vindication. So people were rapturous with joy on the one hand and deeply relieved on the other.
Only those who have been to Rio Tuba and/or are aware of its contributions to the LGU of Bataraza and the provincial government of Palawan will understand what may have cause the 180-degree turn by Sec. Gina. At the same time that about-face was also something to be saluted, a humbling acknowledgment that if, as she insisted, mining was bad, bad, bad, then there were, as there always are, one or a couple of exceptions to the rule.
Palaweños would be pleased, I think, to find out that from 2016 to 2020, RTN has paid nearly P400 million in real property taxes alone to Palawan. I can only imagine what such payments can fund in terms of public works projects or, in this time of COVID, in terms of health care. I would even dare say that very few other business operations in the province could match these payments, and while the tourism industry was the other major income generator for Palawan and its LGUs, the pandemic has wiped out those contributions and we can only wonder how soon things can get back to the pre-pandemic levels.
They would also be pleased to know that in one corner of their province, educational opportunities for the next generation are being created through the establishment of schools, alternative learning centers for the IPs, and the distribution of teaching materials needed for the blended learning mode of instruction that the Department of Education has adopted during this pandemic period. Where, like Barangay Taratak, areas are so remote they do not benefit from electric power and the children could not study once the sun has set, solar panels have been donated so that even at night the children can study under bright lights in their homes.
Instead of all these being a burden on the province and its taxpayers, RTN in partnership with Coral Bay has stepped in to do these things.
“Pwede pala!”
Although mining remains a controversial topic for some Filipinos, including those who believe that Mother Nature’s gifts should be kept preserved and untouched for future generations to also keep preserved and untouched, the example that Secretary Gina saw for herself in early 2017 tells us that you can — and should — take advantage of Mother Nature’s gifts to lift up the quality of life of the people, making sure at the same time that the temporary disturbance that is caused by your operations is remediated by programs and projects that are in keeping with the demands of the law.
I’ve always said this when asked to “defend” mining. Think about it: when a responsible mining operation moves part of our earth to extract valuable minerals, it does its best to return the disturbed part of the land to what it was beforehand, with local tree species planted so that fauna soon returns. You can no longer do that when you build a subdivision, carve out a highway or build a mall.
And when we now dream of shifting to a green economy needing batteries to replace fossil fuels as our source of power, remember this: you cannot have batteries and fuel cells without Mother Nature’s minerals from which they are assembled.
So if mining is inevitable it cannot be anything but responsible mining, the very type of operations that the late secretary saw for herself and that left her impressed enough to exclaim, “Pwede pala!”
