By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
exceptions. ”
As I write this, Business World columnist Bienvinido Oplas (My Cup of Liberty) has been silent for more than 24 hours already and I have grave doubts if he will break his silence. Our encounter was prompted by his column on March 15 (below) which did not settle well with me. I wrote a rejoinder (second piece below) but their editors did not publish it. So I posted it on the comment space of the column but to my shock, it disappeared and each time I reposted it, it vanished. Frustrated and suspecting him to be responsible, I unleashed a series of choice barbs against Oplas. In fairness, Oplas allowed the taunts on the thread and around five days ago, he said my letter was rejected by his editors because it was “low life,” resorted to ad hominem and not issue-based. That angered me even more so I told him that the Inquirer publishes my “low life” comments while his “erudite discourses” are good only for a “small paper.” To my mild chagrin, when I googled, I found out that their circulation was more than 100,000 which was only a little less than half that of the Inquirer but I did not delete the taunt. Two nights ago, he got back at me saying that I should write a column for the Inquirer and not just a letter.
That was when I discovered he was publishing his articles in his Facebook account. I posted the letter there too with an advice to his friends that they read fast or print screen it because the moment Oplas will see it, he will delete because he is deathly scared that his readers will read the piece. Surprisingly, this time the letter was still in the thread following morning and more than that, he answered it almost point by point. I comprehensively addressed his rebuttal last night and that was when he kept mum.
“Seven myths in the mining debate
The endless debate in mining is largely fueled by endless myths and disinformation that fan more emotionalism than reason. Below are some of these myths and the realities behind these half-truths.
1 Mining provides a small contribution to GDP, only P70 billion a year in gross value added (GVA).
Wrong. Mining GVA is P85 billion a year, average for 2010 to 2016. Also, the sectors gross value production is P166 billion a year, average for 2010 to 2015. A large part of this is from large-scale corporate mining while the reported contribution of small scale mining is very small, only about P1 billion a year in 2013-2015.
2 The mining industry’s tax payments are small and almost insignificant at only P3 billion a year.
Wrong. Total taxes, fees, and royalties paid by large-scale mining is around P23 billion a year, the P3 billion a year is only for the excise tax collections by the BIR. Small scale mining pay zero to the BIR, they pay only little amount to the LGUs.
3 Employment share of mining is very small at only around 100,000 workers.
Wrong. From official figures, employment in the sector is about 240,000. Excluded in the numbers are those that are indirectly hired like communities that benefit from several social development and management program (SDMPs).
4 Mining activities should be stopped since it results in large-scale environmental damage while yielding minimum benefits.
Wrong. Aside from the national income and consumption taxes (corporate income tax, VAT, excise tax, documentary stamp tax), royalties, and regulatory fees, there are plenty of mandatory contributions and community expenditures that a mining company must spend on. These include: (a) Annual Environmental protection & Enhancement Program (EPEP), (b) SDMP, (c) Community development program (CDP), (d) Environmental work program (EWP), (f) Safety and health program, others.
Then there are mandatory environmental funds; (a) Rehabilitation cash fund, (b) Mine monitoring trust fund, (c) Mine waste and tailings fees reserve fund, (d) Final mine rehabilitation and decommissioning fund, (e) Environmental trust fund, (f) Mine rehabilitation fund (MRF), others.
5 Open pit mining is very destructive and must be banned anywere.
Wrong. It looks very destructive only in the mining stage. After the minerals are mined out, the area is rehabilitated by covering them with topsoil then reforested. It is happening in Rio Tuba Nickel mining in southern Palawan and other companies.
With global cooling to follow the global warming phase, we should expect more rains, more flooding, not less. This means we should have more dams, lakes, and other water-impounding structures to reduce flash flooding during heavy rains.
Some mined out open pits are better left as big wide holes and serve as man-made lake, like Caliraya lake in Laguna. These can create new jobs via tourism, fishing and irrigation for farms, aside from reducing flash floods.
6 Closure of many mines means better investment environment because the country is getting more green.
Wrong. DENR Secretary Gina Lopez’s suspensions and closure of many firms has negative signals. There are more uncertainties in the sector now as more regulations are added on top of existing ones, each regulation costing money and time to comply with.
And these will eventually discourage investments and drive away some of the large companies that want to remain honest. The “small-scale” and illegal mining that are hardly taxed and regulated can flourish in this environment of heavy regulation.
7 Mining is entirely useless and destructive so we should have none of it.
Wrong. No mining, no modern life. No cars, no buses, no airplanes, no buildings, no electricity, not even nails, hammers and big knives to build a nipa hut or “barung-barong.”
The main purpose of government is to lay down rules that apply to all, big and small players, and enforce the laws without any exceptions. If government should be strict with big mining firms, then it should be strict with small scale mines too. If government is to promote job creation in many sectors, then government should protect jobs in compliant big mining firms too.”
My letter to the editor:
Who is peddling myths?
As what is bound to happen when a person is defending the untenable, the column of Bienvinido Oplas, Jr. titled “Seven myths in the mining debate” (March 15, 2017) which tried to dismiss arguments against mining in this country as myths is a pack of myths. Take the case of alleged Myth No. 7 which claims that without mining, we could bid goodbye to modern life since we would have no materials to make vehicles, airplanes, buildings and other props of modern life from. It is nonsense. The scenario he painted would ensue if mining would be stopped world-wide but the context of his column is just the stoppage of the local mining industry. Nobody but him is talking about a global ban on mining activities. His argument is founded on too many absurd assumptions. First, the metals mined in the country are processed and used in the country. The truth is 97 percent of the total mining output of the country finds its way to the countries of the mining companies. Second, the moment we stop extracting metals in the country, all the things we need daily which are made of metals like cellphones and kitchen utensils will be gone from the market. To Oplas and others who employ this logic, there is no such thing as movement of goods across borders. What you need, you produce by yourself and in your backyard, too. Come to think about it, the local mining industry has no effect whatsoever on the prices of cellphones and cars in this country and here is Oplas wanting Filipinos to believe that the availability of such things to us is dependent on the continued operation of mines in the country.
On the basis of this myth, Oplas wants the country to turn a blind eye to the stiff environmental price tag of mining.
Regarding Myth No. 4, I noticed that he dwelt on the second part (“while yielding minimum benefits.”) but did not address the first part (“Mining activities should be stopped since its results to large-scale environmental damage.”) He trotted out the taxes mining companies pay and likewise the various mandated contributions, community expenditures and environmental funds they must regularly allocate. He sells the myth that just because mining companies cough out all these expenses, their extraction activities do not damage the environment — that the said funds cure all the destructive effects of mining on nature which of course is a myth.
And this brings us to the mother of all myths in the mining debate: the claim of the mining industry that despite the flood of evidence, their activities have never done the environment of this country any harm specially since the enactment of the Mining Act of 1995; that the sins and irresponsible acts of mining companies if ever they did happen belong to the past era. Oplas and his ilk wants us to believe that it was nothing but misplaced passion which led to the decision of Environment Secretary Gina Lopez to close and suspend the operations of the 23 and five mines, respectively. Only the self-deluding people like Oplas would believe that all those 28 mines are innocent of the wrongdoings and shortcomings alleged by Lopez.
In Myth No. 5 (Open pit mining is very destructive and must be banned anywhere), Oplas tries to deodorize open pit mining by alleging that the abandoned mine site can be rehabilitated citing the case of the Rio Tuba Nickel mining of the Nickel Asia Corporation (NAC) in Palawan and other companies he did not mention most probably because no such mines exist. Granting the claims of mining advocates about the Rio Tuba mines are true, one swallow does not a summer make. I would like to point out that according to Chapter 9 of the book “Comparative Perspective on Global Corporate Social Responsibility” by Dimar Jamali, NAC is not displaying the same level of concern for the environment in its mines in Mindanao. These have been subjects of complaints including the degradation of the environment.
In his desperate attempt to defend the practice of open pit mining, Oplas claimed that abandoned open pit mines suit the conditions global cooling which allegedly will follow the global warming episode will bring about. Oplas wants the country to risk the continuing practice of a discredited mining method on the basis of a climate episode which up to this time is only in the realm of speculation among scientists. While at it, he also claims that the lakes created by open pit mining are good for tourism, fishing, irrigation for farms and flood mitigation. It escapes his brain fevered by the ardent desire to make mining palatable that areas could be made beneficial without having to pass through the open pit mining detour.
Oplas makes much of the employment offered by the mining sector which he claimed is at about 240,000 (Myth No. 3). The question is should we risk the continued destruction of our environment for the sake of these 240,000 workers and their families? And how about the farmers, fishermen and other people whose livelihood are adversely affected by the operations of the mines like the people in Pangasinan and La Union whose farmlands were caked by mine tailings from the mines in Benguet?
I challenge Oplas to a joint visit to the 28 mines ordered closed and suspended by Lopez for various environmental violations to see who is peddling myths.**(To be continued)
