By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
(This letter to the editor was published by the Philippine Star online edition — was unable to check the printed copies — on April 29, 2017 but minus the last three paragraphs.)
With his performance during the March 9 Commission on Appointments hearing on the confirmation of Environment Secretary-designate Regina Lopez, what Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri will be saying during the continuation of the hearing on May 2 bears watching. He may have more inaccuracies and omissions which have the effect of misleading the public up his sleeves.
Zubiri had announced that he is a stickler for numbers and that he had gotten in touch with the Philippine Statistics Authority when he stood to “fact check” the statements of Lopez. But it appears he had not read the list of the mines ordered by Lopez closed when he declared not one of the mines is located in the 20 poorest provinces. Emir Minerals Corp. and TechIron Mineral Resources, Inc. which are among the mines ordered closed are located in Eastern Samar (http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2017/02/02/DENR-closes-23-mining-firms-plans-rehabilitation-of-affected-areas.html) which is in a tie with Lanao del Norte for the 11th and 12 spots at 50 percent poverty incidence.
Zubiri was right when he pointed out that contrary to the claim of Lopez, Caraga is not the poorest region in the country. But he did not mention that Caraga is a strong fourth in the list of poorest regions. With its 35.3 percent poverty incidence among families, it’s just 2.1 percent lower than third running Region 12 which has 37.4 percent. The region is very much closer to the bottom of the heap than it is to the top. This makes the question of Secretary Lopez “If mining is so good, why is Caraga the poorest region in the country?” relevant.
Zubiri also mentioned for the record that the Caraga provinces Surigao del Norte with 33 percent poverty incidence, Surigao del Sur with 32.8 percent and Agusan del Norte with 31.1 percent are not in the Top 20 poorest provinces. He said they are No. 25, No. 27 and No. 31, respectively. Conspicuously missing from his list of Caraga provinces is Agusan del Sur which at 44.7 percent is No. 10 poorest. More than that, he did not cite the PSA report’s national poverty incidence among families for the first semester of 2015 which was 21.1 percent. This is substantially lower than the poverty incidences of all provinces in Caraga.
Zubiri cited several other mining provinces outside the Caraga which are not in the 20 poorest list including “heavily mined” Benguet “which surprisingly, is next to the NCR at number 79 in the list of poverty incidence with only 6.4 percent of their families in poverty” which erroneously made it appear that mining is responsible for the better life in the province. That’s misleading. Had he but done some research like he said during the hearing that Secretary Lopez should have done, he would have seen that per story “CAR gets less from mining” in the Sunstar-Baguio August 4, 2016 (http://www.sunstar.com.ph/baguio/local-news/2016/08/04/car-gets-less-mining-489377), there are only 6,974 people working for the three large scale mining companies in the province.
The same article cites National Economic Development Authority Regional Director Milagros Rimando as saying that the sector has failed to be an economic driver for the region for the past years and neither does it impact employment as a whole.
What I would ask Zubiri and anybody who uses the low poverty incidence of Benguet as an argument for mining is with its estimated 200,000 labor force, how could large scale mining which employs less than 7,000 people now be credited for the very low 6.4 percent poverty incidence of the province?
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