by KAROL ANNE M. ILAGAN

With the Arroyo government's aggressive marketing of the Philippines as a mining country, many fear that the Marinduque experience may serve as a standard in dealing with future mining disasters — with no one behind bars, the mess left behind, and the community virtually abandoned to fend on its own.

BOAC, MOGPOG, AND STA. CRUZ, MARINDUQUE — A neat tapestry of Spanish-style houses, old churches, beaches, and rows of coconut trees that never seem to end characterizes this island province southeast of Manila.

	MOGPOG River [photo by Karol Ilagan]

The key word here is “neat.” Along the main road that connects all six towns in the island, huts big and small are all tidied up, each yard spic and span. “It’s not an order or anything, it’s just how things are here,” says one resident. “Bakuran mo, linis mo. Ganoon kasimple (Your yard, you clean it up. It’s that simple).”

If only cleaning up after mining operations gone terribly wrong were that simple.

In the midst of a global economic slowdown, the Philippine government has turned to reviving the mining industry to help bring in much-needed revenues. But environmentalists have been up in arms not only over the resurgence of what they have described as a very destructive business. Many of them also say that at the very least, national authorities should first help the likes of Marinduque recover from previous mining disasters before opening up other areas for new ventures.

Indeed, 12 years after suffering from what is still by far the country’s most serious mining catastrophe, Marinduque has yet to be rid of millions of tons of mine wastes that have choked Boac River. Millions of tons more lie in Mogpog River and Calancan Bay, and there are signs that even more will pour into these waters if some of the abandoned mine’s structures are not repaired soon.

	NEXT PART 2 looks at how a real cleanup of the mess left behind by Marcopper has continued to evade Marinduque.

It may be impossible for Marinduque to be rid of most of the toxic mine wastes that has become the legacy of Marcopper Mining Corporation in the island. Yet even a promise to rehabilitate Boac River has all been abandoned by Placer Dome, the Canadian mining giant that had a 40-percent share in Marcopper, which extracted copper concentrates, as well as gold and silver ore from Marinduque’s Mount Tapian.

Today locals who used to fish for a living in the now-polluted Boac and Mogpog rivers and Calancan Bay have yet to find alternative means of livelihood. Worse, medical professionals have observed an increase in chronic illnesses in people living near the waste sites, leading them to suspect that the toxic mining trash has been silently wreaking havoc on the residents’ health.

Provincial health officer Dr. Honesto Marquez, for one, says he has noticed a rise in the number of cases of diabetes, goiter, renal disease, spontaneous abortion, and even cancer particularly in the towns of Sta. Cruz, Mogpog, and Boac. At least three young Sta. Cruz residents, with ages ranging from eight to 19, have also passed away due to illnesses believed to be related to heavy-metal poisoning.

SMOTHERED WATERS
Between 1975 and 1991, Marcopper is estimated to have dumped some 200 million tons of mine waste in Calancan Bay in Sta. Cruz. In 1993, the company’s Maguila-guila dam collapsed, filling Mogpog River with silt, essentially killing it. Three years later, Boac had its unfortunate turn to have its river system smothered with three million tons of mine tailings.

	Location map of Mogpog, Marinduque courtesy of Wikipedia

The 1996 mining accident in Boac is considered to be the worst in the country’s history. But health officials say it is Sta. Cruz that is the most worrisome in terms of the kind and sheer number of illnesses being recorded there.

So much mine waste was dumped into Calancan Bay that a seven-kilometer long and half-kilometer wide land mass was formed there. Called the Calancan causeway by some, it is more commonly known among locals simply as “tambak” or pile.

“People living near Calancan Bay, they have been feeling it, it's just that there was no massive spill unlike Boac,” says University of the Philippines National Poison Management and Control Center (UP NPMCC) chief Dr. Lynn Crisanta Panganiban. “It was a slow contamination and low-level exposure…through time.”

Before it divested itself of its shares in Marcopper in 1997, Placer Dome spent some $70 million in putting a new plug in Tapian Pit drainage tunnel, building levees on the Boac riverbank, and dredging a channel at the mouth of the river. The amount also covered the construction of new homes, roads, and airlifting of food and other supplies to the devastated area. In addition, Placer Dome paid more than $1 million as compensation to Boac fisherfolk and laundrywomen who could no longer use the river to earn their living.

Placer Dome committed itself to rehabilitating Boac River. But it never admitted responsibility for the contamination of Calancan Bay and the Mogpog River spill. The company also maintained that there were no conclusive studies linking the mine wastes to the diseases plaguing the residents of the affected areas. Barrick Gold Corporation, which bought Placer Dome in 2006, meanwhile says it is not responsible for the problems the latter left behind in the Philippines.