SEAWEED FARMERS DECRY MINING

Panay News
October 18, 2014
BY SEPTEMBER NOON MACAHILO

Iloilo City – A group of seaweed farmers endured a 24-hour travel from the municipality of Caluya in Antique to the gates of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) regional office here to protest open-pit coal mining in Semirara Island.
Semirara is one of Caluya’s three major islands.
Seaweed farming is a multimillion-peso industry in Caluya but according to the farmers, coal mining in Semirara is destroying the municipal waters where they grow seaweeds.
They urged DENR to hold DMCI Holdings, Inc. liable for the environmental destruction in Semirara and the waters around it, and stop the company from further expanding its operations.
DMCI, parent company of Semirara Mining and Power Corp. that operates the coal mine, plans to expand its operations to the two other major islands of the municipality – Caluya proper and Sibay.
Like seaweed farming, coal mining in Semirara also generates huge revenues for Caluya. Last year, the town recorded an annual income of P328 million and of this, P235 million or 72 percent was from DMCI.
But according to Enrilina Andres of Napay Seaweeds Farmers Association in Barangay Sabang, Caluya proper, “mawawalan kami ng lupa at dagat na aming ikinabubuhay (we will surely lose our land and the sea from where we depend our livelihood).”
According to the protesters, over 4,000 residents own seaweed farms that generate over P400 million annually.
The 2010 census placed the municipality’s population at 30,046.
The town is now the fifth largest seaweed producer in the country. Needing no fertilizer, it takes only about three to four weeks to harvest the seaweed.
Compradors buy it at more or less P200 per kilo and send it to Cebu where it is processed into carrageenan, a gum that is used as stabilizer or thickener in jellies and dairy products, processed meat, toothpaste and pharmaceutical products.
DCMI had been given the go-signal to explore Caluya proper and Sibay but according to the protesters, no consultation was done.
DENR regional technical director for Forest Management Services Livino Duran was quick to address the issue.
“Basi ang DENR indi ang right agency para magsabat sini. The area is under Proclamation 649. This means it is actually a coal reservation. Kun maghambal kita coal reservation, ang may primary jurisdiction ara sa Department of Energy,” he said.
Still, said Duran, DENR is interested to know the environmental issues that the seaweed farmers were raising.
In an interview in May this year, Mayor Genevive Lim-Reyes of Caluya told Panay News her local government is not only banking on coal mining but is also exploring other potentials of the municipality like tourism.
She did not discount the possibility that DMCI might someday cease to exist.
“That is what we are always thinking about here. What will we do should the coal plant stop earning? We know that coal is not sustainable,” she told Panay News. “That’s why I and my people are all for boosting the tourism industry in Caluya.”
Meanwhile, the Commission on Human Rights was asked to investigate alleged widespread abuses, threats and violation of human rights in Caluya.
“We are documenting what appears to be a long-term pattern of rights abuses on the island and a company working very closely with the local government to shield them from questions,” said Jacinto Eslit of Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, one of the groups supportive of the protesting seaweed farmers.
Eslit said he spent a week on the island documenting the situation.
Joining the protesting seaweed farmers yesterday were the Save Antique Movement, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, Freedom from Debt Coalition, Iloilo Student Association for Nature and Development, and I-RISE Iloilo./PN   source