TUBA, Benguet -- A women’s non-government organization advocating the development of the rich natural resources has continued to pitch for responsible mining as a potent tool toward sustainable development after its members visited Padcal mine.
The group said they have observed Padcal mine to be a major employer and builder of communities, as well as a big contributor to nation-building, economic development, and environmental protection.
“There’s a symbiotic relationship between a mining company and a mine site community, including mine workers and their families,” Minerva Chaloping-March, PhD, said during a forum held by Diwata-Women in Resource Development, Inc. (“Diwata”), a group of women in extractive industries including mining, at Padcal’s Smith Hall, in Barangay Camp 3, Tuba.
In her presentation titled “Fostering Gender-Sensitive Collaboration Toward Sustainable Local Economies,” the Cambridge-educated Chaloping-March stressed how best practice in mining industry “needs the unique traits, attributes and experiences of women,” who are more patient, caring, and who tend to think more of the social aspects affecting a community.
This sentiment was echoed by Eliza Laudencia, a geologist and a trustee of Diwata, saying women are inclined to spend more on education, social, and economic needs, especially in a close-knit community such as those built by mining companies in far-flung areas.
She told the forum dubbed “Diwata Roadshow on the Role of the Community and Women in Mining,” for instance, how Diwata had sent to India four Aeta grandmothers from off-grid areas in Tarlac and Zambales to study in the Barefoot College, which was founded by the renowned social activist Bunker Roy, in Tilonia, and become “solar engineers.”
These women were so eager to learn how to fashion solar lamps out of basic parts and tools, to light up their villages, which have no electricity. And being grandmothers, the women were seen to be so caring to their families, neighbors and respective villages—which could have otherwise been provided with electricity by or through mining operations—and, above all, they didn’t harbor any ambition of leaving their homes for overseas jobs because of their age.
Related problems, such as malnutrition and the lack of schools and public infrastructure, are felt in other remote areas in southern Philippines, such as in Sarangani, rich in mineral sources and home to the indigenous tribe called Blaan, but has remained undeveloped because of a ban on open-pit mining.
“A lot of children in my tribe are dying of diseases and the lack of health-care facilities,” said Annalie Edday, a Blaan princess who had studied in the United States and came back to be with and work for her people, and has since been an advocate of responsible mining for a better life and sustainable development.
She said the Blaans are sitting on a mountain of copper and gold that is a mountain of hope for them.
“I am looking forward to the day when we can access the facilities that you have here,” she told officials, employees, and residents of the outlying communities of Padcal mine, which Philex Mining Corp. has been operating in the Benguet towns of Tuba and Itogon since 1956.
Edday together with Herminia Ladgamen, an educator who hails from South Cotabato, and the trustees of Diwata toured the Padcal community and witnessed how the company has built a hospital and other medical facilities, schools, housing units—all for free, including utilities, for its employees and their families.
“We admire you for working toward the development of community through responsible mining,” said Lagdamen, who also took note of the company being a major employer in the Cordilleras, giving its employees an average compensation package higher than those in the region and in Metro Manila.
“Please help us pray to change the way our churches and local governments think [against the mining industry], so that more of us would benefit, including future generations, from the riches that shall be derived from our mineral resources.”
Also taking note of the company’s successful reforestation project, the women of Diwata, led by Philex Mining VP for Exploration Redempta Baluda, conducted a tree-planting activity at the decommissioned and rehabilitated Tailings Storage Facility No. 1, in Sitio Sal-angan, part of Itogon’s Barangay Ampucao, the following day, Thursday, August 18.
Philex Mining said in an earlier statement that it has spent P65 million for reforestation since 1987, having planted about 8 million different species of trees across 2,750 hectares of land in the host municipalities of Tuba and Itogon.
Diwata has already visited two large-scale mining operations as part of its first roadshow since its establishment in 2012, and is heading next to visit some miners in Mindanao, southern Philippines. (PR)