Donald
A little lengthy but may be of interest.
Rick
Part 1
BUY & SELL
The First and Only Ad Paper in Palawan
October 7, 1997
PART III: THE CEMENT PLANT ISSUE
By: Jane Timbancaya-Urbanek
"The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless
and until its unit is firmly established."
From the Baha'i Writings
IS MINING MORE DESTRUCTIVE THAN LOGGING?
Part II of the Cement Plant Issue had writer Yazmin Arquiza saying that
commercial mining is more destructive than commercial logging (Palawan Buy
and Sell Vol. 2 Issue 37). Arquiza's statement drew the following reaction
from Roland Rodriguez, mining engineer, who, with Higinio Mendoza Jr.
heads the Central Palawan Mining and Industrial Corporation, one of the
proponents of the cement plant project:
"Commercial logging is more destructive for the following reasons: In a
given mining concession, the area to be mined out is very small relative to
its total concession area. The average is about 5% or less. This leaves
95% of the mining concession available for reforestation, agriforestry
projects, and retention of existing forests, if any."
"For example: The mining concession of Central Palawan and Industrial
Corporation in Espa¤ola covers an area of about 5,000 hectares. The East
Quarry in Suked will only be 75 hectares for the first 25 years. This is
only 1.5% of the mining concession," Rodriguez added.
He further said that if one considers that in cement production, all the
limestone and shale being mined goes straight to the cement plant and comes
out as finished product, this eliminates the problem of waste disposal or
mine tailings common to all copper and gold mines. In contrast, Rodriguez
said that about 80% of a commercial logging concession is utilized where
trees of almost all sizes are cut for the production of lumber, plywood,
chip boards, etc. "The area under operation is large scale and the danger
of siltation and soil erosion is therefore greater. Rehabilitation cost
becomes prohibitive and in the long run risks its sustainability aspect."
Arquiza, in her article published by Philippine Star, June 30 issue, called
attention to the pollution and environmental destruction in almost all
mining companies in the Philippines. "Anyone who wants to see the
destructive effect of mining in formerly pristine areas need go no further
than this village (Riotuba, Palawan), whose name has become synonymous with
the nickel mining firm that has operated here since 1977."
"On a clear day, clouds of red dust swirl around trucks loaded with nickel
ore as they lumber along an artificial plateau created by the Riotuba Nickel
Mining Corp., known here simply as RTN. Reddish brown craters and canyons
dominate the landscape, with the scarred hills contrasting sharply against a
backdrop of verdant mountains and blue skies." Arquiza, a Bandillo NGO
Palawan pioneer (on June 5 this year, Bandillo was awarded by President
Fidel Ramos the Likas Yaman Award for Environmental Excellence - category:
environmental campaign), feels that the possibility of having a cement
plant which would stick to the rules, is quite nil; and with the well-known
lack of effective monitoring system among concerned
agencies today, she added that, the contention of those who believe that the
proposed cement plant should be allowed under very strict monitoring -should
be well-thought out before it happens.
Incidentally, RTN is a recipient of awards and citations given by the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources - for following rules and
regulations. For travelers to the southern tip of Palawan - RTN is also a
breath of `relief' as one finds food and clean toilets after the hours of
dust on the road and the RTN staff and officials are quite proud, it seems,
of what they have there.
PCSD SUBMITS THE CEMENT PLANT EIS TO DENR
On July 28 this year, the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development
(PCSD), 3 days after their Capitol Bldg. meeting, where almost everyone
who's who in the development mainstream of Palawan were present, transmitted
to the DENR the Palawan Cement Project Environmental Impact Statement report
and other documents for technical review. This project's route through
Philippines' regulatory procedures, its fate, is being closely monitored by
development planners, implementors, and investors all over the world.
On Aug 4, Palawan Governor Salvador Socrates, feeling strongly for this
project's eventual realization for the sake of development of Palawan,
appealed to President Fidel Ramos: "Your Excellency, we fully believe that
the Palawan Cement Project represents a significant contribution to the
RP-Canadian Investment Accord and BIMP-EAGA polygon of economic system, with
cement and rock aggregates as specific contribution from Palawan- its 13th
Focus Area. In the global integrated community, it can be demonstrated by
the Palawan Cement Project that "APEC means Business" - a solid testimony
when Your Excellency turns over the APEC helm to your Canadian counterpart
come November 1997".
Recently, President Ramos met with the mayors of the affected areas
about the cement project. Details of this meeting, as of press time
were not available. Clearly, the issue is still very much alive, inspite
of pronouncements about its alleged demise by some sectors.
CEMENT PLANT BENEFITS FOR PALAWAN
The following listing of benefits and disadvantages of the cement plant is
culled information, ideas, and opinions from an NGO, the Samahan Laban sa
Kahirapan, Inc., concerned individuals, the contras and the pros:
1) In terms of employment: about 2,000 workers will be needed to construct
the plant, pier, conveyor belt, administrative buldings and staff houses
during the first year. The project would employ about 500 permanent
employees during the duration of operations. Because of the cement plant,
it is predicted that the private sector would employ an additional 500
workers doing services, cottage industries, and related businesses. The
municipal government of Espanola will add about 100 employees to its present
staff.
2) In terms of supply and price of cement: the retail price of one bag of
cement in Espanola today is: P125. It would go down to P80/bag if they have
the cement plant. The provincial, municipal governments can, during the
first years of operation when the plant is still tax-free, have advance
supply of cement from the project for their infrastructure needs, according
to the proponents.
3) Income for Espanola municipality: Their income would increase by an
average of P100 million per annum for 50 years. This is aside from the
income that would accrue to the Provincial Government.
4) Road Construction: All major and minor roads of Espanola will be cemented.
5) Livelihood programs: An allocation for livelihood projects shall be
donated to the municipality of Espanola by the project.
6) Scholarship grants for students
7) Establishment of public and private colleges in Espanola;
8) Vocational Skills Training programs for the Palaw'an and other
disadvantaged groups in the project site vicinity;
9) Establishment of a hospital and upgrading of medical services;
10) Increase in business opportunities;
11) With interventions like agroforestry projects, etc., the town would
increase its agricultural and marine productivity.
WHAT COULD HAPPEN IF THE CEMENT PLANT IS ALLOWED AND IT DOES NOT TURN OUT
TO BE WHAT WAS PROMISED?
This US $376 million project can turn out to be Palawan's biggest
nightmare: forest destruction, floods, erosion, siltation - damage to crops
and marine productivity; dried up rivers and creeks, loss and extinction of
wildlife due to damage to their habitats; Danger and damage to life in the
site and surrounding areas. With the cement plant, the scenario in the town
of Espanola and Quezon could change drastically from a pristine and a very
rural setting to a crowded and polluted, dirty town. This would bring with
it the usual social ills like: increase in crime rate, alcoholism, drug
addiction, accidents, prostitution, increase in pollution-related diseases
and damage to agricultural and marine productivity due to erosion and
siltation.
That is the bleakest scenario that is in the minds of the oppositors of the
cement plant. This must have been what was in the mind of Puerto Princesa
City Mayor Edward Hagedorn, who publicly, during a Senate hearing on the
cement plant issue, declared his opposition to the cement plant -
modifying his earlier stand that as long as it is not in his area - he
leaves it up to the other local leaders concerned to decide this issue.
The group from the city, led by some councilmen which visited the cement
plant in Cebu to verify and get more information, an effort which bespeaks
of the open-minded attitude of the city government, still has to let the
people know what their conclusions are.
But regarding this, Roland Rodriguez of the Southern Palawan Mining and
Industrial Corporation said: "Palawan has been blessed with rich natural
resources such as oil and gas, metallic minerals like chromite, nickel,
gold, mercury, silver; and non-metallic minerals like limestone, shale,
and silica. Our responsibility is how to extract and utilize them in a
manner that would contribute to the sustainable development of our
resources, which in turn will help us alleviate the high incidence of
poverty in the province. We feel that at this point in time, we are
responsible enough to rise up to the challenge". He added that there will
be strict in-house monitoring as part of their operations on top of what
the concerned agencies will be doing. "So," Rodriguez said "a nightmare
would not happen; we will stop before it happens."
DTI FRETS OVER DENR'S INACTION ON MINING BIDS
In the meantime, on Aug. 14, Bulletin Today reported that the Department of
Trade and Industry "has grown impatient over what it described as
"snail-paced" action by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources
(DENR) on the remaining issues hounding the entry of new
mining projects" The report said that "already, the mining sector posted a
negative 19 percent growth rate in the first quarter this year pulling
down the country's gross national product to 6.1 percent as against the 6.9
percent in the first quarter of 1996.
In Palawan, concerned watchers familiar with development growth in other
parts of the country are alarmed at what is happening in relation to
projects brought here. As a growing number of investors are attracted to
Palawan, this province has also started earning the reputation as burial
grounds for many projects and investments which could have made positive
impact on the total development of this province. The NGO group in
Palawan, clearly has become a force to contend with; other NGOs in other
parts of the country consider the Palawan NGO as a model to emulate.
Analysts say that it is largely due to NGO pressure that to date, the
following projects have been rejected by Palawan: Langogan hydro electric
power project, Philippine Coconut Planters Association project in Rizal
town, Lapanday sugar project in Iwahig, Labtay tourism project (twice,
proponents: the Tungli group; and the Brunei group). Other NGO targets more
recently are: NCCC Arrecefi Resort in Honda Bay; and the Ten Knots in El
Nido. Some people are keeping tab of this growing list, and asking: "What
are Palawan leaders doing about this situation?" Palawan observers predict
that if this trend continues, especially with reports that the DENR and
PCSDS (staff of PCSD) have people occupying strategic positions whose
sentiments are biased towards preservation of
Palawan and not its sustainable development, an imbalance in Palawan would
accrue, discouraging prospective investors. As other growth centers like
the Cagayan de Oro-Iligan corridor, General Santos, Davao, and even
war-ridden Zamboanga make leaps for progress, Palawan languishes in
poverty. As places like Negros (with 4% forest cover) and Cebu (with
almost no forest cover left) rise to a better quality of life (here defined
as: better food, shelter, clothing for human beings; availability of
water, power, travel and communication infrastructure, higher incomes for
people), Palawan has a long way to go. Considered Philippines' Last
Frontier, and to many who have seen it, Philippines' Last Paradise, with
its very great potential as a growth center, today, Palawan has remained
poor, with about 87% of its 700,000 population living below poverty line.
This situation has prompted a concerned visitor to say : "Very pretty,
but how come, very poor?" "It is a mistake to equate economic growth with
development," according to Arquiza. "This is how many of our government
planners think. Often, high growth rates are attained at equally high
costs: pollution, labor exploitation, social alienation, etc. There is
always a trade-off somewhere, and we need to make our choices carefully."
THE COST OF BEING CLEANEST AND GREENEST
"Edward Hagedorn was lucky that during his time the oil money was already
at his disposal," former Puerto Princesa City mayor Bert Oliveros said
during the last election, when queried by critics why during the last 20
years that he was mayor - he was not able to clean up the city, the same
way Edward has done. It is a fact, and everyone in the know would attest
to this that banner projects of the present city government, which had
gained for the city media mileage, like Pista Y Ang Kageban, the
cleanliness program, started before Hagedorn entered the scene.
Incidentally, the Pista was a volunteerism and community mobilization
project which was initiated by the Palawan Integrated Area Development
Project Office (PIADPO, now PCSDS) in 1991, and enthusiastically supported
by Oliveros; it was offered by PIADPO for adoption by the
city in 1993; now going on its 8th year - it has bloomed, as a city
project, and as a Puerto Princesa tourist attraction, yearly, in the month
of June.
Organized environmental protection in Palawan dates back to 1982 when the
Palawan Integrated Area Development Project (PIADP) was launched. Before
then, efforts towards conservation were mostly coming from a few
concerned individuals utilizing various fora and media; sincere efforts, but
mostly isolated, and sporadic. Noting this situation, Salvador Socrates,
also Palawan governor then; and Teodoro Pena - then Minister of Natural
Resources -both Palawenos, did then what is now more appreciated. As the
country's planners were working on the `design and layout' of the IAD
project addressed to Palawan, Socrates and Pena (Socrates was also
Undersecretary in the Ministry of Local Governments), aware of the alarming
environmental degradation in Palawan, insisted on building into the project,
an Integrated Environmental Program -the mother of the Strategic
Environmental Plan Law (R.A. 7611) as we know it today. If a baby can have
2 grandfathers and 2 fathers - it is safe and right to say that Socrates
and Pena `grandfathered' the SEP baby; then Speaker of the House Ramon
Mitra Jr. and Palawan congressman David Ponce de Leon fathered it; they
authored the SEP bill in Congress which eventually was signed into law by
then President Cory Aquino on June 19, 1992! The mothers? SEP was a
product of about 5 years of scientific studies and public hearings and
consultations, about 3 years of deliberations in Congress - mothered by
Filipino and non-Filipino consultants, by the hundreds of people who
participated in the making of this document that is unique; which set
Palawan apart from the other provinces; a breakthrough in the history of
sustainable development in the Philippines. I would put in Senators Orlando
Mercado and Ernesto Maceda as the fathers of the commercial logging ban
clause in the SEP, with a lot of help coming from Haribon's Junie Kalaw who
at that time was setting a track record as an advocacy and pressure group
with his country-wide Save Palawan movement. The total project cost of
PIADP was US$ 85 million - which came from a loan from Asian Development
Bank and a grant from the European Economic Community, and counterpart
funding from the Philippine Government. It focused on central and southern
Palawan: brought asphalted roads to the southern municipalities, brought
down the incidence of malaria from 58% to 18%, built the port of Puerto
Princesa, allocated funds for agri-credit, tried to educate farmers in
multi-storey cropping system, upland stabilization, built irrigation
systems, and tried to encourage farmers to intensify and diversify
agricultural production - as one way to minimize slash-and-burn farming and
increase productivity. The Second PIADP total project cost was US$83
million, addressed to northern Palawan and the
island-municipalities-designed basically the same way as the first phase,
also focused on agriculture. As the SEP was still a bill in Congress in
1991, and since the European Union was more involved with the environmental
protection component from the beginning, they expressed preference for
continuity, to wait for the legitimization of SEP, before again coming in as
a funding agency upon its implementation. The Palawan Tropical Forestry
Protection Programme (PTFPP), funded by the European Union through a grant
(ECU 17 million; Philippine Government counterpart: ECU 4.3 million), is
operating within the framework of the SEP, focused on forest protection,
under co-management, and administratively, under the PCSDS. It aims to: 1)
delineate and demarcate the protected areas of Palawan, conduct intensive
environmental education and environmental awareness campaign, upland
development, institutional strengthening; the programme includes the
utilization of the most recent, modern management tool, the Geographic
Information System. Launched in 1995, it is a 7-year project.
Other funding agencies in Palawan today are: United Nations, US AID,
WWF, Japan, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Conservation
International, etc.
Taiwanese, Koreans, Bruneians, Malaysians are here more as investors,
cashing in on Palawan's business potential.
"Nothing comes from nothing - nothing ever could" is a strain off a
song from The Sound of Music (Rogers and Hammerstein) and also applies to
Palawan's economy. On its own, left out by a national government which
considered Palawan "too far', Palawan has barely moved from where it was
for many years. Not too long ago -it was known for the penal and leper
colonies, the malaria mosquito - and the Tabon Caves. Today - it is known
for its pristine beauty, and its relatively intact natural resources. It is
of late also known for being the `cleanest and greenest' province and city.
As supporters of Hagedorn used the many awards the city had received for
being clean and green, as a selling point during the last elections - the
supporters of Oliveros countered by saying: "Yes! Clean and Green
-including our stomachs! as they decried the present administration's lack
of focus on the biggest and most widespread problem in Palawan and including
the city, today: poverty. Incidentally, poverty, according to a UN
report, is a major cause of environmental destruction. There are right now
in our midst, NGOs who are quietly working among the various communities,
with this report in mind. No media coverage; they prefer it that way.
Known for their track record for good, effective community organizing,
their humility, sensitivity, and respect for the host culture - their
efforts have paid off, especially with their micro projects. The
Philippine Center for Alternative Rural Technology (PCART) could be a
model for all of us working for the development of Palawan. The
Japan Wildlife Research Center (JDWRC), although considered a newcomer,
has had some very positive impact on a Tagbanua village in Cabayugan.
REACTIONS FROM READERS
The last two articles on the cement plant issue had drawn reactions from
many readers. Some of these were phoned in, others came up to the office
of Palawan Buy and Sell to personally say their comments. One irate
businessman called up and said: "Can you please tell the NGOs-sumusobra na
sila" (They are too much) and went on to tell me that the articles are too
tame. "Bakit puro na lang bawal" (Why is everything prohibited?) referring
to several projects which have been rejected to a large extent, because of
NGO pressure.
Some comments were e-mailed. From Randall Bochenek, Idaho, USA: "I refuse
to be involved in investments which I feel are morally WRONG, such as
nuclear projects, companies that are involved with destroying the
rainforests, companies that make war materials like land mines, nerve gas,
biological weapons, etc. and companies which pollute the Earth. There is a
cement plant near here (in Lime, Oregon) which is very compact, and the only
sign of it is a very small amount of dust in the air, at times, from
limestone unloading, I think. My brother used to work there. Not very many
employees, and no environmental degradation that I know of. Just a little
dust, calcium (limestone), which doesn't seem to travel very far from the
plant. Since it is very likely that the plant in Palawan will be built, my
personal opinion would be to make it as clean and modern as possible; and
to set aside a portion of the profits (say maybe 10% of the net profits?) in
a fund dedicated to the welfare of the native peoples - for building and
funding a hospital and some modern schools (for instance), and maybe some $
for the purpose of eliminating slum areas by providing housing for the
dispossessed people."
"Just my unqualified thoughts on the subject. (BEWARE OF BUREAUCRATS who
will steal the money, leaving little for the projects for the people). Good
luck to you all; wishing you health, wealth, and happiness --from Idaho, USA"
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