British mining companies have expressed further interest in doing business in the Philippines, following a business meeting with President Arroyo in London. Rio Tinto has reportedly expressed interest while BHP Billiton is already active in the country.
See under UK bioenergy firm pledges P6-billion investments in RP at http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/221395/uk-bioenergy-firm-pledges-p6billion-investments-rp.
President Arroyo Challenged to Act on Indigenous Racial Discrimination
Indigenous Peoples Links Press Release
19 September 2009
Indigenous Peoples Links (PIPLinks), a UK-based support group on indigenous rights, presented a letter to President Arroyo on her visit to the United Kingdom, raising issues around the recent concluding observations of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
The CERD, which is made up of experts from 18 countries, issued its critical recommendations to the Philippines Government following its review of the Government’s overdue report in Geneva in August 2009. The CERD welcomed various positive developments in the legal framework, such as the 1997 Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA), but it raised a number of critical concerns and recommendations in relation to respect for Indigenous Peoples’ rights in practice.
The extensive set of recommendations regarding the Government’s implementation of Indigenous Peoples’ rights included urging the Government to acknowledge that racial discrimination exists in the Philippines, to ensure that Indigenous Peoples are protected in situations of armed conflict and that independent and impartial investigations are conducted into all allegations of human rights violations.
Crucially, it recommended that the Government fully implement the IPRA, ensuring that economic activities, especially mining, carried out on indigenous territories do not adversely affect the protection of Indigenous Peoples’ rights under the Act. With regard to this it made specific recommendations on the activities of TVI Pacific, who are operating in the ancestral domain of the Subanon at Mount Canatuan. This case has been the subject of an ongoing complaint to the CERD for the last two years. The CERD urged the Government “to consult with all concerned parties in order to address the issues over Mt. Canatuan in a manner that respects customary laws and practices of the Subanon people”.
The CERD was concerned over the implementation of IPRA and its provision to ensure Indigenous Peoples are given the right to Free Prior Informed Consent before any mining or other development can take place on their lands. They called for an independent review of the IPRA to verify that the current structures and guidelines/procedures established to conduct FPIC are in accordance with the spirit and letter of the IPRA. They also called for an independent review, in consultation with Indigenous Peoples, of IPRA and all aspects of the legislative framework in relation to indigenous property. The CERD asked the Government to report back within one year.
PIPLinks was part of a consortium of groups concerned with indigenous rights that submitted a ‘shadow report’, and video, to counter Government claims that there was no racial discrimination in the Philippines. As many of the concerns expressed by Indigenous Peoples in the ‘shadow report’ were over how the Government, through the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, was failing and mis-representing them, there is a real concern as to how the voice of Indigenous Peoples will be heard more directly with regard to these life and death issues.
We await a response from the Government, but in the meantime are concerned that the President prioritised meeting mining companies in London, when their activities are the source of so many of the ongoing concerns raised by Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines.
– ENDS –
QUOTE: “The government must tell the truth. We have been waiting for so long. The government’s report that there are no indigenous peoples’ discrimination is purely a lie as fabricated by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), through its incompetent local officials. They should be held accountable.” – Timuay Lambo, Chief Elder of the Subanon Council of Seven Rivers in the Zamboanga Peninsula
Contact: Andy Whitmore, Indigenous Peoples Links (PIPLinks)
Mob: +44 775 439 5597 Email: comms@piplinks.org
President Arroyo
c/o the Philippines Embassy
8 Suffolk Street
London, SW1 4HG
18 September 2009
Your Excellency,
I am taking the opportunity of your visiting the United Kingdom, to write on behalf of Indigenous Peoples Links, a UK-based support organisation working to uphold and promote the collective and individual human rights of Indigenous Peoples. We would like to raise issues around the concluding observations of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which were made public on 31st August 2009.
The CERD issued its recommendations to the Philippines Government following its review of the Government’s overdue report (and in doing so invited the Philippines “to observe the deadlines set for the submission of its reports in the future”). The CERD welcomed various positive developments in the legal framework, such as the 1997 Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA). However, it raised a number of concerns and recommendations in relation to respect for Indigenous Peoples’ rights in practice.
In relation to the mining operations of TVI in the Ancestral Domain of the Subanon of Mt Canatuan, which has been subject to a submission to CERD’s Early Warning Urgent Action Sub-Committee, the Committee noted that it “remains concerned that contradictory information continues to be presented to it with regard to the status of actions taken to address the violations of the Subanon people’s rights and destruction of their sacred mountain.” To address these violations of the Subanon’s rights the Committee urged the Government ‘to consult with all concerned parties in order to address the issues over Mt. Canatuan in a manner that respects customary laws and practices of the Subanon people and welcomes information from the State party in relation to further developments’.
The Committee made an extensive set of recommendations in relation to its concern regarding the Government’s implementation of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including urging the Government to:
· acknowledge that racial discrimination exists in the Philippines;
· gather disaggregated data on the situation of Indigenous Peoples through a consultative process with them;
· ensure that Indigenous Peoples are protected in situations of armed conflict and that independent and impartial investigations are conducted into all allegations of human rights violations;
· adopt adequate measures in order to ensure the enjoyment by internally displaced [Indigenous Peoples] of their rights under article 5 of the Convention, especially their right to security and their economic, social and cultural rights;
· conduct an independent review, in consultation with indigenous peoples, of the legislative framework in relation to indigenous property, with particular regard to the question of consistency between the IPRA, its implementing guidelines, the Regalian doctrine and other related doctrines, as well as the Mining Act of 1995;
· fully implement the IPRA, in particular by securing the effective enjoyment by indigenous peoples of their rights to ancestral domains, lands and natural resources, and ensuring that economic activities, especially mining, carried out on indigenous territories do not adversely affect the protection of the rights recognised to indigenous peoples under the aforementioned Act;
· streamline the process for obtaining land rights certificates and take effective measures to protect communities from retaliations and violations when attempting to exercise their rights;
· verify that the current structures and guidelines/procedures established to conduct FPIC are in accordance with the spirit and letter of the IPRA and set realistic time frames for consultation processes with indigenous peoples.’;
· verify that the apparent lack of formal protests is not the result of a lack of effective remedies, the victims’ lack of awareness of their rights, fear of reprisals, or a lack of confidence in the NCIP;
· ‘to consider ratifying…ILO International Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (No. 169)’ and ‘making the optional declaration provided for in article 14 of the Convention’.
Finally the Committee required the Government to report back in one year in relation to:-
· actions taken to implement the recommendations of the reports of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions and of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous People;
· developments at Mt Canatuan in relation to the respect for customary laws and practices of the Subanon people;
· steps taken to streamline the process for obtaining land rights certificates and to put effective measures in place to protect communities from retaliations and violations when attempting to exercise their rights.
Given the above we would like to enquire what concrete measures your Government will take in order to implement these recommendations, particularly to ensure that the voice of Indigenous Peoples is heard more directly with regard to these important issues. Specifically we would like to know how you intend to “conduct an independent review, in consultation with indigenous peoples, of the legislative framework in relation to indigenous property”, that also verifies “current structures and guidelines/procedures established to conduct FPIC are in accordance with the spirit and letter of the IPRA”.
We look forward to hearing back from you at your earlier convenience.
Yours faithfully,
Geoff Nettleton
Coordinator
Indigenous Peoples Links
Local & International Groups Slam Mining Confab in Manila – Raise Human Rights Violations and Climate-Disasters as Serious Risks
Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM) Press Release
16 September 2009
International groups criticized today the World Economic Forum and the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP), for promoting a misplaced development priority policy in the Philippines, as the industry opened a conference and exhibit at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Hotel in Pasay City, Philippines.
Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM) national coordinator Jaybee Garganera said the conference “is an attempt to drumbeat the revitalization of the Philippine mining industry. This revitalization strategy is an erroneous development policy of the Philippine government.”
Garganera said that based on official statistics, the contribution of mining to the national economy is minuscule; the jobs generated are not even one percent and even the investments made are off the mark by 80 percent. He also pointed to the many thousands of lost and reduced livelihoods in farming, fishing tourism and others that are caused, among some of the poorest peoples, by mining development. He also criticized the national government’s policy shift in aggressively promoting mining, saying that “President Arroyo’s continued promotion of large-scale mining has introduced only increased human rights violations and vulnerability to climate-related disasters in mining-affected communities all over the country.”
In rebuking the event, Garganera said Arroyo, who ironically authored the Philippine Mining Act that paved the way for the influx of Canadian, Australian, British and US mining companies into the country, should realize that “large-scale mining poses serious threats to asset reform gains as it displaces and continues to displace indigenous peoples from their ancestral domains under Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA). It poses risks to protected areas and critical watersheds covered by the National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS), directly impacts on irrigation and agriculture lands of farmers under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and will contaminate municipal waters and coastal areas, something that is condemned by the Fisheries Code.” He claimed that these scenarios are not only likely to fuel social tensions in the area, but also amplify the probability of climate-disasters in geo-hazard areas in the Philippines.
Geoff Nettleton, coordinator of London-based Indigenous Peoples Links (PIPLINKS), and a member-organization of ATM, stressed that “large-scale mining operations are in direct conflict with sustainable development and has a clear record of association with human rights violations, intimidation and abuse. Although transnational mining companies claim to work to the highest international standards, time and again this has proved not to be the case, especially with regard to impacts on affected communities, and the failure to respect the legal requirement to gain Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), especially from affected Indigenous communities.”
Mia Pepper of Friends of the Earth-Melbourne and coordinator of MAP-Oz (Mining Action Philippines – Australia) slammed the mining grand show, explaining that “revitalization of mining is a misplaced economic policy, since the mining industry is still reeling form the impacts of the global financial crisis. Encouraging the entry of mining investments in this climate of financial uncertainty will only bring in companies to the Philippines with questionable reputation. There are already so many communities struggling to deal with the environmental impacts of mining in the Philippines, it would make more sense at this stage to create stronger safe guards to protect communities from mining companies rather than to create more opportunities for mining companies. This has the potential to create more social and cultural issues for local communities” she added.
Meanwhile, Sonya Maldar, Policy Analyst from the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) in London, said that “before any large-scale mining project is allowed to proceed, both the mining company and the Philippine government should ensure that genuine information and consent processes should be ensured.” Maldar also challenged the mining companies to “ensure that the partners and contractors it chooses to work with are not involved in bribery or corruption.” CAFOD release last year a hard-hitting report “Kept in the Dark” last October 2008, where it implicated a BHP Billiton’s joint venture partner, AMCOR, of employing bribery and misinformation to proceed with its project in Mindanao.
Canadian groups also expressed their reservations on continued promotion of large-scale in the Philippines. Catherine Coumans, Research Coordinator of MiningWatch-Canada, based in Ottawa, Canada, said that “Unless the Philippine government legislates that mining companies must respect all human rights, and puts in place sanctions and remedies for non-compliance with binding human rights regulations, multi-national mining companies will continue to abuse human and indigenous rights in the Philippines with effective impunity” says Catherine Coumans of MiningWatch Canada, “and Filipinos will be left having to seek compensation for damages in foreign courts, such as the case of Marinduquenos against Barrick Gold in the United States.
Daphne Villanueva from Christian Aid raised the alarm regarding additional risks of mining, saying, “because the benefits to the national economy remain so unclear, it is vital to focus on the local impact of mining. Here the picture is clear — people who live near mines in the Philippines are overwhelmingly being made worse off, because of environmental degradation, economic stagnation and human rights concerns.” The risks to mining communities are multiplied by geological and climate-induced hazards scientifically recognised to be present in many mining sites. “If there is a role for mining in the Philippines, it must be within a context of human rights and truly sustainable development” Villanueva added.
The national campaign group, Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), is composed of more than 80 organizations from mining affected-communities, Peoples Organizations, NGOs, Church groups and academe. The alliance has been at the forefront of the campaign against the aggressive promotion of large-scale mining in the Philippines. An advocacy group and a people’s movement, ATM upholds the rights of the present and future Filipinos against the persisting injustices related to mining. ATM convened by HARIBON, Legal Rights and Natural Resource Center/Kasama sa Kalikasan – Friends of the Earth Philippines (LRC/FOEI) and PhilDHRRA.
ATM is calling for the Scrapping of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, and the enactment of the Alternative Mining Bill (HB 6342); Rejection of the National Minerals Action Plan under EO-270 –A; and a moratorium on large-scale mining in the Philippines
References:
Jaybee Garganera, ATM Coordinator, (632) 426.67.40 / (63915) 315.37.19
Roslyn Arayata, ATM Policy Research (63917) 521.79.37
Rodne Galicha, ATM SoS Coordinator (63908) 742.19.05
Email: jaybee.garganera@gmail.com and alyansatigilmina@gmail.com