Anti-mining groups want Duterte to cancel OceanaGold’s FTAA

By BusinessMirror -June 19, 2019
https://businessmirror.com.ph/2019/06/19/anti-mining-groups-want-duterte-to-cancel-oceanagolds-ftaa/

ANTI-MINING groups have asked President Duterte to cancel the financial and/or technical assistance agreement (FTAA) of Australian-Canadian mining firm OceanaGold.


OceanaGold through its Philippine subsidiary, OceanaGold Philippines, operates the Didipio mine in the province of Nueva Vizcaya.


OceanaGold’s 25-year FTAA license is set to expire after 25 years on June 20, 2019.


“Oceanagold’s destructive big mining has been barricaded by indigenous communities, recently opposed in a unanimous provincial council resolution, and is even currently investigated by nine United Nations special rapporteurs. It is high time for the Duterte government to cancel OceanaGold’s FTAA license and compel the destructive mine to answer for its various rights violations,” said Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment, one of the national support groups for the Nueva Vizcaya-wide campaign against the foreign mining company.


Representatives from various Nueva Vizcaya-based people’s organizations, Kalikasan PNE, Alyansa Tigil Mina, and the Greenthumb Coalition, together with Nueva Vizcaya Gov. Carlos Padilla and CBCP NASSA Secretary Fr. Edwin Gariguez raised the call for OceanaGold’s FTAA cancellation before Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu in a dialogue at the DENR Central Office.


“We believe that more than a decade of human-rights violations and other negative impacts against communities and ecosystems in Nueva Vizcaya are a strong basis for denying the mining company’s extension,” Dulce said. Kalikasan-PNE said in 2007, Oxfam Australia came out with a Mining Ombudsman Report narrating how villagers accused OceanaGold of engaging in “harassment and the use of strong-arm tactics to pressure them to accept its plans to develop a large gold and copper mine.”


“In 2011, the Commission on Human Rights found OceanaGold complicit in the forced evictions of indigenous and peasant families that included the indiscriminate burning of homes from 2008 to 2009,” Kalikasan-PNE added.


Meanwhile, a 2014 environmental investigation mission (EIM) led by independent scientist group Agham found damage to forests, air pollution from dusty roads and stockpiles, and massive water pollution, all affecting the health and livelihood of affected residents. In 2017, former Environment Secretary Gina Lopez ordered the suspension of OceanaGold’s operations, but the order was stayed by the Office of the President after the company made an appeal. In the same month, at least 133 families were forced to evacuate their homes and local community leaders experienced threats and intimidation, after military combat operations swooped across the mine’s operational and expansion areas.


“To date, villagers in OceanaGold’s host barangay of Didipio have yet to be given their due just compensation from the company. Worse, the villagers have been forced to pay with their rights and civil liberties for being vocal in demanding accountability,” Dulce said.


A communication last February by nine special rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights Council, including Special Rapporteur on Environment Prof. John Boyd and Chair-Rapporteur on Business and Human Rights Surya Deva have sought answers from the Duterte administration on the series of violations involving the Didipio mine.


On Monday, the Provincial Council of Nueva Vizcaya came out with a unanimous resolution calling for the non-extension of OceanaGold’s FTAA.


“We will exercise constant vigilance to make sure the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Duterte administration revoke the pro-plunder, pro-polluter FTAA license of OceanaGold. Its license’s expiry will mark the start, not the end, of our watch,” Dulce ended.