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Issue Number 29/30, May 2008
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 29/30, May 2008
DIGGING DISASTER: OCEANAGOLD’S DIDIPIO
PROJECT
- Dennis Small
“The land is for the people, not for foreign mining
firms”, Peter Duyapat, Didipio councillor and
President, Desama.
Sharply climbing gold prices have been lighting up the
greedy eyes of predatory capitalist interests worldwide.
OceanaGold is a rela-tively new Australian-based
transna-tional corporation (TNC) with ope-rations in both
Aotearoa/NZ and the Philippines. In NZ its assets
com-prise the country’s biggest mine at Macraes in
Otago, the Globe Prog-ress mine near Reefton, and its
new-ly commissioned Fraser’s mine, also in Otago.
OceanaGold has been working to increase its
“exposure to the precious metal via increased
pro-duction or lower hedging” (Press, 6/11/07,
“Miners bullish on gold price”). In November
2007, Oceana-Gold Vice-President and Corporate/Investor
Relations spokesperson Darren Klinck said that:
“Most of us in the industry are very bullish on the
gold price, and thus we see positive things ahead . . .
as the company grows we are looking for more ways that we
can get better leverage to the (spot) gold price”
(ibid.). One key way of doing this is evidently using
leverage and bullyboy tactics on the local Filipino
people at its multi-million dollar gold and copper mine
venture - its Didipio Project in the Kasibu village area
of Nueva Vizcaya province, Cagayan Valley region,
northern Luzon.
Being Bullish For Gold
“Gold mine operator OceanaGold used a combination of
intimidation and inducements to pressure Filipino
villagers to accept a proposed gold and copper mine, an
Oxfam Aus-tralia report alleges. In its report on
Oceana’s Didipio mine – based on a five year
investigation – Oxfam Aus-tralia said the miner
refused to ac-cept that many of the local people did not
want a mine in their front yard” (Press, 2/10/07).
Oxfam’s Mi-ning Ombudsman, Shanta Martin, commented
that: “There is significant opposition to the
project by many in the community as well as the elected
local council” (ibid.). In response, Darren Klinck
denied the allegations
made by Oxfam.
But “Shanta Martin said the Council had not freely
given its consent to the project ‘despite Oceana
allegedly resorting to coercive means to secure
continuation of the project’. During the last five
years, Oxfam had interviewed hundreds of villa-gers from
Didipio and found many complained of harassment and
inti-midation by agents of the Australian owned
mine” (ibid.). Allegations from local people
included claims that “company representatives
offered inducements to members of the Didipio Barangay
(village)Council through money, employment and enormously
inflated offers for their land” (ibid.). Oxfam
asserted that OceanaGold may in fact “have publicly
misrepresented levels of community support for the
proposed Didipio mine including to share-holders and the
Australian Stock Exchange” (ibid.). There were
possible breaches of corporate law involved. Oxfam made
its report pub-lic because the TNC was still failing to
address local grievances. OceanaGold had taken over the
operations of Australian-owned Climax Mining in the
previous year and had not directly committed all of the
alleged abuses. However, it of course remains accountable
for Climax Mining’s activities since it took
ownership of them.
People Power
In August 2007, it was reported by the Philippine Star
newspaper (cited in the Press, 22/8/07), “that
anti-mining villagers – already stirred up over
having NZ-listed Oceana’s mining in the area”
– were blocka-ding an Australian-owned company,
Oxiana Philippines, which was moving in equipment for
prospecting another site (Press, 22/8/07). Kasibu village
residents were standing their ground, despite a court
order for them to clear the way. They were “led by
tribal elders and supported by environmental groups and
the local Catholic Church” (ibid.). The local
authorities warned that the villagers would be forcibly
dispersed while Oxiana Philippines contested charges of
lack of consultation with community leaders. “But
Mayor Romeo Tayaban said the NZ and Australian-owned
companies continued to explore mining prospects in their
villages despite the stiff opposition from residents,
com-posed of various tribal communities. His villagers
were struggling to fight off three mining projects by
Oxiana Philippines and OceanaGold Philippines”
(ibid.).
Meantime, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) and the
National Commission on Indigenous Peoples claimed that
residents in the primary impact zone had endorsed the
mining exploration. MGB’s national office had
“granted Oxiana a two-year exploration permit
covering 3,000ha for gold, copper and other minerals of
commercial value” (ibid.). However, a widespread
opposition movement has grown up, including the
Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement, various local
environ-mental groups, and small-scale mi-ners.
Particular concern focuses on the need to conserve
watershed areas, vital for vegetable and fruit growing,
especially for the citrus crops for which the region is
famed.
Oxfam Australia reported in October 2007 that disgruntled
Didipio villagers had moved to shut off the water to the
mine being dug by OceanaGold (Press, 4/10/07). The
villagers “launched a formal action against the
Philippines National Water Resources Board to stop the
water permits for OceanaGold’s project. Oxfam
Australia said the villagers had lodged the action
because the mine’s water use would contaminate their
water supply, cause environmental hazards and threaten
farming” (ibid.).
More Mineral Resource Repression
In mid-January 2008, the Kalikasan People’s Network
for the Environment, (Kalikasan PNE), de-clared in a
press release that physi-cal confrontation could be
imminent between anti-and pro-mining groups unless the
authorities took positive intervention on the side of the
former who were determined to disallow mining companies
on to their ances-tral lands
(www.kalikasan.org/kalika-san-cms/?q=node/166).The first
blockade reported above in August 2007 had proven
successful but now two of the companies involved –
Oxiana and Australian firm RoyalCo - were trying to
access an alternate path where a second blockade had been
set up. So in early 2008, there were two blockades in
place against foreign mining firms eyeing explo-ration
operations in Kasibu muni-cipality. Kalikasan PNE
reported that: “Earlier this week, indigenous
peoples in the citrus-growing village of Papaya in
Malabing Valley, Kasi-bu, successfully expelled another
Australia-owned mining firm, Ocea-naGold Philippines,
from conducting exploration operations in their
lands” (ibid.). The movement ap-pealed to the Arroyo
Government to withdraw the permits issued to Oxia-na,
RoyalCo, and OceanaGold.
At the time of writing (February 2008) the situation
seems to be de-teriorating, or at least becoming very
tense and uncertain. On February 23rd, the Philippine
Daily Inquirer re-ported that Kasibu residents were
denouncing “the alleged atrocities committed by
armed men, who have been securing the ongoing
earth-moving activities of a foreign mining company. The
villagers, mostly Ifugaos, called on the Commission on
Human Rights to investigate the use of armed men from the
Philip-pines National Police’s provincial mobile
group (PMG) to secure the entry of OceanaGold Philippines
Inc, an Australian firm, into private lands in the
area” (ibid.). The newspaper report went on to
describe how the local residents “have been
protesting the entry of the firm, which is attempting to
conduct large-scale mining for gold and copper in Didipio
village despite its failure to obtain the consent of the
local commu-nity” (ibid.). OceanaGold’s own
secu-rity agents were also apparently in-volved.
OceanaGold has even been demolishing houses “amid
unre-solved disputes on landowners’ com-pensation.
‘This company has become so desperate that it is now
employing force and intimidation through the use of armed
men,’ said Peter Duyapat, president of the Didi-pio
Earth Savers’ Multi-Purpose As-sociation (Desama), a
people’s orga-nisation” (ibid.). Police
officials have denied that their force is involved in
intimidation. Its denial, again however, is obviously
belied by the force’s actions – having been
expe-rienced and seen by so many of the local people.
Furthermore, the TNC is directly implicated here,
following a long-established practice in the Philippines
and throughout the Third World, of using armed force to
trample over the rights of local com-munities. The
newspaper report makes it clear that the police
deploy-ment was “upon the request of company
officials”. Since this was written, one of the
Ifuagaos protes-ting the demolitions was shot and wounded
by a company security guard, on Easter Saturday. Ed.
Causing Community Dissension
The police deployment in Kasibu is probably symptomatic
of a new level of Government-mandated security for TNC
mining operations in this re-gion and throughout the
Philippines. In an article in the Australian Age,
“Living in the Shadow of the Re-sources Boom”
(2/2/08), Nick Mc-kenzie portrays the tragic plight of
Juanita Cut-ing and her family, local villagers at
Didipio and how they are on the verge of losing their
home. Military men have come and told her family to move
(www.minesandcom
munities.org). Indeed, the Philippine Daily Inquirer
report cited above described a case where a farmer has
actually lost his home to one of OceanaGold’s
bulldozers after an incident in which he was forcibly
restrained (op.cit.). Mckenzie goes on to make the
general point that the Arroyo Government is trying to get
tougher on community resistance to mining and to
Communist and other rebel attacks against mining
opera-tions (op.cit.). The new strategy would involve the
institution of supposed self-defence local militias.
It can be said that this would clearly mean a lot more
community dissension and division. As has widely
happened, both in the Philip-pines already and in other
countries, the authorities and security forces would use
a combination of intimi-dation, employment, bribery and
other means to get some locals in their interests. More
globalist elite manipulations would be employed to
disempower and exploit vulnerable peoples. All this makes
the appeals of the people of Didipio and Kasibu to the
governmental administration even more poignant. The
Australian companies have already been working on this
strategy in Kasibu and Didipio. For instance, efforts by
Oxiana and RoyalCo in the mid-January 2008 stand-off to
break community resistance have involved Bugkalot people
confronting one a-nother on both sides of the barri-cades
(Kalikasan Website, op. cit.).
Mckenzie relates how Peter Duyapat, President of Desama
and local Didipio councillor, has “conducted a field
trip to troubled mining projects elsewhere in the
Philippines and decided the risks were too great for his
village. In the past, Duyapat used to work for Climax
Mining” (op. cit.). He has since scorned any
inducements to sell out to TNC interests and be suborned
against his community’s interests.
“OceanaGold’s Chief Exe-cutive Stephen Orr
defends the em-ployment of local officials” (ibid.).
Orr says the company is giving royalties for development,
e.g. jobs, better road, and a new school.
But the mine has only a limited life, let alone the
lasting severe social and environmental damage it is
causing. At the same time, the national Philippines
Government is lavishing even more concessions on TNCs,
giving foreign companies full ownership of mines,
generous tax relief, special protection, and rights to
invade public and private lands at will.
The “Resource Curse”
In December 2007, Oxfam Australia’s Mining Ombudsman
Shanta Martin made another visit to Didipio and also
Malabing. Oceana-Gold wants to access the Malabing Valley
to explore the watersheds of the mountain ranges there to
explore for more mining sites. Again, the TNC proved
unamenable to Oxfam’s representations, reinforcing
its previous failures to remedy its activities, even
threatening legal action. Yet more and more landowners
have been coming out into the open to complain about the
company’s treatment of them over property dealing.
Many, too, are choosing to firmly stand their ground
against the TNC. In fact, resistance has apparently
consolidated against the intrusions into the communities
of the Nueva Vizcaya by TNCs.
Mckenzie notes that: “Melbourne-based OceanaGold
plans to dig up $3.6 billion worth of gold and copper
over 15 years from beneath a small hill overlooking
Didipio, a village settled 50 years ago by the Ifugao,
indigenous farming people” (ibid.). Juanita’s
family’s land is to be “a dam to store waste
from an open-pit gold and copper mine” (ibid.). The
incentives are certainly strong for OceanaGold. The
Didipio deposit is “one of the highest grade
gold-copper porphyrys in the world. The deposit remains
open at depth, and based on current proven and probable
reserves, has a 15 year mine life”
(www.mineweb.com:8080/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page674
?oid=46754&sn=Detail). The mine is scheduled to start
in 2009.
In the Malabing Valley, where hundreds of residents led
by an Ifugao elder repelled OceanaGold’s latest bid
to bring in mining equipment, a critical watershed is at
stake in the Mt. Ubon area located between barangays
Papaya and Malabing. “The citrus growers of the
Malabing Valley have strongly resolved to block
OceanaGold because mining threatens their industry, which
is now producing 4,500 metric tons of fresh orange fruits
annually” (www.nordis.net/blog/?cat=32: Northern
Dispatch Weekly, a people’s newspaper for the
Northern Philippines, 27/1/08).
Legal Riposte
“Kasibu Mayor Romeo Tayaban, together with the Legal
Rights Centre (LRC), raised the mining issue in a higher
plane, this time to invoke Republic Act 7160’s
provision on local government autonomy. In a press
statement LRC said Tayaban petitioned the Supreme Court
for a preliminary injunction against the operation of
OceanaGold mining company. In the petition, Kasibu,
represented by Tayaban, asks the High Court to act on the
company’s failure to get the locals’ consent
and to prevent any further damage to the community. It
also reminded Ocea-naGold to respect and comply with
clear demands and to prevent any clear violation of the
local autonomy of local government as guaranteed under
the 1987 Philippine Consti-tution” (ibid.). The
Mayor also asked the Supreme Court to avert
Oceana-Gold’s illegal “displacement of
indi-genous peoples resident in Didipio and other
communities, affecting live lihood and way of life”
(ibid.).
The people affected by the inroads of OceanaGold and
other TNCs are exercising all the legal rights at their
disposal and available to their very limited resources.
As well, they have been employing the strategy and
tactics of non-violent action. Oxfam Australia has
recorded how Didipio community members first approached
Oxfam’s Mining Ombudsman in 2002 with concerns over
a proposed gold and copper mine
(www.oxfam.org.au/campaigns/mining/ombudsman/cases/didipio).Oxfam
said that: “They be-lieve the mine, owned by
Australian stock-exchange listed company OceanaGold, will
cause environ-mental damage, endanger health, displace
them from their lands and destroy income they receive
from agricultural production carried out in the
area” (ibid.). Oxfam’s close moni-toring of the
situation and advocacy since then has helped local
peoples to defend their rights in the face of a very
coercive programme. The Ca-tholic Church has also
supported local peoples in their struggle against this
TNC assault (www.cathnews.com/news/708/39.php).
Oxfam Australia has presented its brief on the grounds of
fundamental human rights. “The Didipio case
highlights the need for communities that will be affected
by mine opera-tions to give their free, prior and
informed consent to mining opera-tions – at all
stages of mining explo-ration, operation and
rehabilitation. As is often the case the opportunity to
give or deny consent has not been provided to the local
community in Didipio” (Oxfam Website, op. cit.). A
glaringly contrasting case that ac-tually involves
OceanaGold is its re-establishment of the Globe Progress
mine by Reefton. The company has been warmly welcomed
there in a traditional mining region. Of course, the
legal regime and statutory requirements are far more
rigorous in application, at least comparatively and for
the present (see my article “Undermining Our
Future” in Foreign Control Watchdog 117, April,
2008, www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/17/05.htm for more on
OceanaGold and mining in general in Aotearoa/NZ).
Beyond the Exploitation Syndrome
The investigatory fact-finding report on mining in the
Philippines in the previous issue of Kapatiran (27/28,
April 2007, “Mining In the Philippines: Concerns And
Conflicts. Report Of A UK Fact-Finding Trip To The
Philippines July-August 2006, which can be read online at
http://www.converge.org.nz/psna/Kapatiran/KapNo27n28/Kap27n28Art/art128.htm)
emphasised the especially se-vere devastation suffered by
this country at the hands of TNCs and large-scale mining
operations. Unfortunately, OceanaGold seems to have
adopted the prevalent corpo-rate pattern. Fortunately, on
the other hand, local and national Fili-pino groups have
been able to forge good connections on this particular
issue with “developed” country non-government
organisations (NGOs). And, as we have seen, Oxfam
Australia has been to the fore. As Oxfam has continually
stressed, such Third World communities need all the help
they can get.
Dennis Small is a longstanding regular writer for Foreign
Control Watchdog. He is also a member of both the Pacific
Ecologist’s Advisory Board and Editorial Committee.
Back to top.
Mining Firm Wants Villagers To Pay For Its Losses
Philippine Daily Inquirer, 5/3/08, Melvin Gascon.
BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya – An Australian mining
company has asked the court here to compel tribal
residents in an upland village in Kasibu town to pay for
the losses it has incurred, after a court order forced it
to stop demolishing houses for its planned gold-copper
mining project. In a hearing on Wednesday, officials of
OceanaGold Philippines Inc. asked Judge Vincent Eden
Panay to increase the bond already posted by 31
complainants from Didipio village, in connection with an
injunction case they filed last week against the company.
“We believe that the bond (of P50,000) posted by the
complainants is not commensurate to the losses that the
company has been suffering as a result of this (temporary
restraining order),” said Diosdado Trillana, counsel
for the mining firm. The lawyer was referring to the
20-day TRO that the court granted against the ongoing
demolition of homes by OceanaGold to clear the area in
time for the supposed start of its production acti-vities
in early 2009.
The complainants, members of the Didi-pio Earthsavers
Mul-ti-Purpose Associa-tion (Desama), filed the
injunction suit on Feb. 27 ques-tioning OceanaGold’s
ongoing clea-ring of lands and demolition of hou-ses in
Didipio, site of the firm’s planned gold-copper
project. Such activities, the complainants said, were
being carried out without a legal order of demolition,
and without paying “just compensation” to the
homeowners.
The company has also not provided for a relocation site
for residents that are to be displaced as required by
law, they said. The complainants are asking for P100,000
each in da-mages. Peter Duyapat, Desama pre-sident, said
the company’s motion for the court to increase the
bond was meant to pressure the com-plainants into giving
up the suit. Last week, the complainants had to shell out
personal money and take loans to raise the P50,000-bond
required by the court.
The TRO has further snagged Ocea-naGold’s attempt to
clear the area of the proposed mining project’s
425-hectare primary impact area. Since 1994, it has met
with stiff opposition from tribal residents. According to
Trillana, the complainants should have posted with the
court a bond more or less equal to the loss that the
company would suffer for the entire duration of the suit.
Testifying as witness, Ramoncito Gozar, Ocea-naGold vice
president for communi-cations and external affairs, said
the company is incurring about $66,000 (P2.7 million) in
daily losses due to the project delay.
If the company fails to meet its target to start
production in April 2009, the project will have to be
called off, he said. Following the company’s
figures, the complainants may have to post a minimum bond
of P54 million for the 20-day period of the TRO. The case
may even take longer to resolve. The company also
questioned the TRO issued by Panay, citing Presidential
Decree 1818, which prohibits courts from issuing such
orders against government infrastructure projects. But
lawyer Mary Grace Ellen Villanueva, counsel for the
villagers, debunked the company’s argument, saying
the payment of bond is also based on the financial
capacity of complainants. “Alleged corporate losses
or damages (suffered by the company) do not justify
violation of human rights,” she said.
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