DENR's 10.7 million peso fine is not enough!

Kalikasan-PNE
January 11, 2006

DENR's 10.7 million peso fine is not enough!

"The DENR's 10.7 million pesos fine to the La Fayette Mining Inc. (LFMI
) is insufficient to cover the environmental and social damages of the
series of tailings spills that the company has brought about. The
measly fine appears to be DENR's way of muffling the local people's demands
to stop the large-scale mining project in Rapu-rapu island for good",
said Clemente Bautista Jr. DENR estimated that La Fayette will earn an
astonishing $41 million per year from the polymetallic mining project in
Rapu-rapu.

Mr. Bautista cited that in other countries the cost of clean-up and
rehabilitation in similar cases of mining cyanide spill runs up to tens to
hundreds of millions of dollars. The environmental impact of the
cyanide leaching in the open-pit Summitville Gold Mine in Colorado and Gilt
Edge Mine in Alaska amounted to $170 million and $15 million,
respectively. The Romanian government once demanded $100 million compensation
from cyanide spills of the Baia Mare Gold Mine which was also operated by
an Australian transnational mining company.



"Basically, the fine that the DENR is charging is based only on the
violation of LFMI of the provision of the Clean Water Act not on the
actual assessment of the impacts of the tailings spill, as well as other
irregularities in the mining operations. Secondly, the fine fails to
incorporate the health and environmental effects of other heavy metals
integrated in the mine waste and tailings spilled by LFMI," says Januar
Ong, Environmental Research Coordinator of Center for Environmental
Concerns (CEC) which headed the independent fact finding mission to
investigate the mine spill held last November 2005.

"Contrary to the claim of DENR Sec. Defensor, the Arroyo government
equally shares the responsibility for the Rapurapu disaster since it has
adamantly pursued its "mining revitalization program" in spite of the
obviously weak control and safety measures instituted by the government.
Still, the people's experiences in Rapu-rapu Island, Marinduque, and
Zamboanga del Norte, to cite a few cases, tell us that its mining
liberalization has not benefited the local people. It has clearly resulted to
massive displacement of communities, environmental destruction and
violations of human rights," added by Mr. Bautista.

Since 2002 the Arroyo government aggressively promotes large-scale
mining and makes it one of its priority economic programs. There are 23
large-scale mining projects that the government is now prioritizing which
according to them will generate billion pesos for the government. ###