CBCP reiterates call for the repeal of Mining Act of 1995
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) through its president Jaro Archbishop Msgr. Angel Lagdameo issued a pastoral statement dated January 29, 2006 reaffirming its stand for the repeal of the Mining Act of 1995.
The CBCP in 1998 first issued a statement against the Mining Act of 1995 warning that "the implementation of the Mining Act will certainly destroy both environment and people and will lead to national unrest."
In its recent statement the CBCP stated that the Mining Act destroys life.
"The right to life of people is inseparable from their right to sources of food and livelihood. Allowing the interests of big mining corporations to prevail over people's right to these sources amounts to violating their right to life. Furthermore, mining threatens people's health and environmental safety through the wanton dumping of waste and tailings in rivers and seas," the pastoral statement reads.
Lagdameo further expressed alarm over President Arroyo's "Mining Revitalization Program" which he believes encourages further the entry and operation of large-scale mining of transnational corporations (TNCs).
"Alarmingly, the mining tenements granted through the program have encroached into seventeen of important biodiversity areas, into thirty-five of national conservation priority areas, and thirty-two of national integrated protected areas. The promised economic benefits of mining by these tansnational corporations are outweighed by the dislocation of communities especially among our indigenous brothers and sisters, the risks to health and livelihood and massive environmental damage," the CBCP president stressed.
Lagdameo is also alarmed with the proposed deletion of the nationalist provisions in the Constitution by the Constitutional Commission "that can pave way to the wholesale plunder of our National Patrimony, and undermine our Sovereignty."
"We reiterate our request to the President to recall all approved mining concessions, and to disapprove pending applications," the statement further reads.
Lagdameo also called on all the religious leaders to support their cause against all mining projects and raise the anti-mining campaign at the national level.