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Issue Number 32, October 2009
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 32, October 2009
“OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MINED”
A DVD By Oxfam Australia, 2007
Reviewed by Jeremy Agar
Marinduque Island, not far from the Philippine capital of
Manila on Luzon Island, produced minerals like copper and
over a billion in profits for head office in Canada. In
the 1960s Ferdinand Marcos, the corrupt and dictatorial
President, gave Marcopper, a subsidiary of Placer Dome,
free rein to extract what it could, by any means it
wanted. The inevitable result has been an ecological
disaster. The mine opened in 1975 and was worked until
1991, when Marcopper shot through. Since then the land
and water near the mine has lain devastated, while
Marcopper’s parent ownership has passed from one
Canadian gold company to another. Meanwhile post-Marcos
governments have sometimes stirred to rein in the
transnationals, but all have buckled, and a new
negotiation has confirmed the right of foreign mining
transnationals to do more or less whatever they
please.
Environmental Catastrophe
In its 16 years of operation, the mine dumped 200 million
tonnes of waste. These tailings are said to be equivalent
to truck loads stretching three times round the world. It
created a new offshore island and the muck, essentially
sulphuric acid with lashings of mercury, cyanide and
arsenic, is still spreading under the sea, killing off
fish and coral. Yet a corporate spokesman felt able to
state that the company “does not believe it has
polluted - in a legal sense”, his additional phrase
being undoubtedly accurate.
In another, human, sense it has polluted. In one test,
all 59 children in a health survey had symptoms of
poisoning from heavy metals. We’re shown rivers
bright with waste. Like the children who had paddled in
creeks and on beaches, village fisherman have been
scarred and discoloured for life. Three children at least
died from lead poisoning. The military might call it
collateral damage. Later a dam failed. Then, the mine
having closed, a tunnel collapsed, resulting in a further
downwash of muck along a third river and down a third
watershed - this one was equal to a truckload’s
volume every second. The deluge forced the evacuation of
10,000 people, rendered rice paddies deserts, and wiped
out 26 kilometres of river. An act of God, said the
company; the forerunner of a further, “virtually
certain” future collapse, said an engineer.
Out of sight, out of mind. The title catches the essence
of the situation. We hear the locals blaming themselves
for their plight, which seems unfair. A marginalised and
isolated people will not easily defeat the combined power
of a distant transnational and a corrupt dictatorship,
and they can scarcely be blamed for not having
immediately intuited the consequences of President
Marcos’ deals. Viewers might have been told that
Marcos had been a 49% owner of Marcopper, either directly
or through dummy companies he controlled, with Placer
Dome holding an original 40%. Marcos, that is, was not
just lax or co-opted. He was directly and personally a
key instigator. But a film can’t do everything, and
this one makes a smart decision to bypass the big picture
and stick to a close-up. Oxfam’s role is educative
and they want to shake us to care about what’s
happening on the ground - and under the water. To that
end, they’ve done a great job. The film directs us
to their Mining Ombudsman Project, just one of many Oxfam
initiatives.
We do see one observer who joins the dots: Marinduque is
a small island, he says*. He’ll
know that the island is twice as poor as the national
average. It might seem incongruous that a community with
bountiful resources is poor, but it’s a global
pattern that what enriches the market impoverishes local
people when they don’t own them. The first scandal
erupted only after Marcopper had exhausted the pit. The
subsequent incidents occurred after the company had ended
its Philippine operations entirely. *For
a discussion of the strategic significance of islands,
see my review of “The Bases Of Empire”.
We hear two apparently contradictory things about
Marcopper: that the company has been dissolved, and that
it plans a return. This is in fact a conventional
business practice, a way to avoid taking the rap. (A
local, less stark, version is the ability of leaky house
building companies to go bust.) If there’s a next
time, though, it’ll be tougher. Oxfam Australia and
now the UN are watching, and the Filipino people know
what they’re up against.
Jeremy Agar lives in Lyttelton and is a regular
reviewer for Kapatiran. #
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