AT the recent Saturday Forum@Annabel’s, we tackled the mining issue in the wake of the order of Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez to shut down 23 mining firms and suspend five others, and to cancel more than 70 mineral processing sharing agreements (MPSAs) for alleged violations of environmental laws.
Who else would be our surprise guest but a big name in the Philippine mining industry: Dr. Walter William Brown, the president and CEO of Apex Mining Co., which is engaged in the mining of gold, silver, copper, lead and other precious metals, and operates a mining concession in Compostela Valley in Mindanao.
With him during the news forum was Dr. Graciano Yumul, a former undersecretary for Research and Development at the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and now the executive vice president for Geology and Exploration of Apex Mining.
Both resource persons said they respected the authority of Lopez to impose sanctions on mining firms that violated environmental laws, but expressed hopes that the affected firms would be given due process.
Like the position taken by the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines of which Apex Mining is a member, Brown and Yumul said their company adheres to responsible mining and complies with the environmental standards set by mining laws and the rules and regulations of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Brown admitted that his mining company had no choice but to pay the “revolutionary tax” demanded by the communist-led New People’s Army (NPA) in Mindanao, but later decided not to pay anymore as the rebels later on were “asking too much”.
Brown said he has worked in the private sector under seven administrations: Ferdinand E. Marcos, Corazon C. Aquino, Fidel V. Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III and Rodrigo R. Duterte, and wants to be remembered—he is now 78 years old—as someone who helped the country move toward economic development.
Brown told the forum that despite his Western-sounding name, he is 100-percent Filipino.
Brown, who also owns the restaurant that bears his wife’s name—Annabel’s—where the Saturday news forum has found a new home after many years at Sulô Hotel also in Quezon City—boasts of extensive experience in both the mining and oil-exploration industries in the Philippines. He has served as the president of Acoje Mining Corp., Surigao Consolidated Mining Co. Inc., Vulcan Industrial and Mining Corp., and I Vantage Corp. (formerly, Palawan Oil and Gas Exploration).
He has also served as executive officer, consultant and director to companies involved in mining, petroleum exploration and development, real-estate development and manufacturing.
Brown holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Science in 1959 and in Geology in 1960, both from the University of the Philippines, a Master of Science degree in Geology from Stanford University in 1963, and a Doctorate in Geology in 1965, Major in Geo-Chemistry, from the same university.
Will this work?
IF the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) had its way, a parallel campaign would be carried out in the war on illegal drugs, this time by plastering official “drug-free home” stickers on residences certified by the local Peace and Order Council as free of illegal drugs.
This, after President Duterte directed the Philippine National Police to suspend all antidrug operations in the aftermath of the abduction-murder of Korean national Jee Ick-joo in October last year.
I recall that then-Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim adopted a similar approach during his term, by spray-painting the homes of suspected drug users and pushers.
Lim’s “shaming” campaign was assailed as a violation of human rights as it arbitrarily judged an individual as guilty of a drug offense without due process. The DILG’s plan to plaster “drug-free home” stickers is a variation of Lim’s spray-painting tactic, but from a different angle.
But essentially, the DILG proposal would shame everyone in residences without the “drug-free home” stickers as drug addicts and/or pushers without due process and leave them vulnerable to rogue law enforcers who could extort money from them or even kill them outright as part of the administration’s brutal war on drugs.
We have grave apprehensions over the DILG proposal as this would embolden unscrupulous elements to resort to criminal acts against people whose homes do not have the “drug-free home” stickers.
The DILG should study the implications of this planned campaign as it could infringe on civil and political rights and the guarantee of due process embodied in the Constitution.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.
1 comment
Nobody will question the need to penalize erring mining companies. The problem comes when a Cabinet Secretary declares them erring without proper procedure being followed. But Lopez completely misses the point. As far as she is concerned, mines are guilty until proven inncocent. So she has them shut down before sorting it out. She is clearly unfit for the position. Love of the environment is not the same as being competent.