Showing posts with label MPSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MPSA. Show all posts

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Mining 14: Teddy Casino's Environmentalism

Yesterday, Teddy Casino, Senatorial candidate of Bayan Muna/Makabayan Coalition, posted this in his facebook page,

We recently challenged provisions of the Mining Act of 1995 in court.

Ang pagmimina ay dapat bahagi ng isang National Industrialization Policy para matiyak na napapakinabangan ng mga Pilipino ang ating yamang mineral, at minimal ang negatibong epekto nito sa kapaligiran at mga komunidad.
Read the full statement: http://ow.ly/k6Ibm 

I commented on it, I wrote that “Government collects about 43% of the net revenues of big metallic mining firms. But government collects zero from small-scale metallic mining, and 9% from net revenues of non-metallic mining firms, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2013/03/mining-7-mining-taxation-and-government.html

A supporter of Casino defended him, below are our exchanges:

Leon Dulce Para-Sa Kalikasan But its contribution overall is only 0.91% to GDP, 2.5% in total investments and 0.38% to total employment. At hindi lang taxation ang usapin sa large-scale mining.
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/index.php/news/nation/10114-mining-act-assailed-by-ngos-anew

Nonoy Oplas The contribution of mining to GDP is similar to raw agriculture. Chicken sold at wholesale price would cost only about P100 each on average, that's the agri share to GDP. When the same chicken is sold as litson manok and sold at P212 (Andok's or Baliwag litson), the P112 value added is counted as service sector share to GDP.

Copper, nickel, iron, when sold as ordinary stones or soil, is priced relatively low. But without these mineral products, there will be no construction and steel industry, no electricity and power industry, no tv/cellphones/radio/various electronics industry.

Leon Dulce Para-Sa Kalikasan Minerals are finite and should be utilized based only on the needs of the people, with the environmental and socio-economic concerns of communities in mind, and with a national industrialization plan in mind.

But as it stands, ores and huge profits are exported while the people are left with literally crumbs. And poison. Look at Padcal Mines in Benguet. Look at Citinickel Mines in Palawan. These are just recent cases. Paano yung long-standing and unresolved like Marcopper?

Mining by TNCs are not bringing in the revenue and safety as advertised. Mining should the public's, no one else.

Please read the article linked above in sir Teddy's caption before rehashing the tired, old lines about "no laptops if no mining."

Nonoy Oplas I read Casino's statement and it's lousy. As I noted above, tax payment by small scale metallic mining in 2010 was zero vs. P12 billion by big metallic mining, constituting 43% of their net revenues. Why is Casino silent on zero taxes, all extraction only by so-called "small scale" mining but are actually "big politicians mining".

Mineral deposits are infinite. Magma, gases and geological movement from the planet's core to the mantle up to the crust, mineralizes ordinary rocks and soil. That is why countries in the Pacific Rim of Fire have more mineral deposits than those in Africa, Europe, S. America and N. America atlantic side. A mining engineer from UP Diliman showed slides about this, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2013/03/mining-8-supreme-court-hearing-on-ra.html

Leon Dulce Para-Sa Kalikasan Ooh, geologists and mining engineers! Let's wait for the millions of years needed to renew minerals through the continental drift. In the meantime, let's be contented with the poverty incidences that remain highest in mining-affected communities, according to UPSE economists.

Lousy.

Nonoy Oplas I saw Rio Tuba Nickel Mining in southern Palawan. That small barrio has more shops, more cemented roads, wide street lights, a La Salle-administered private elementary and high school and it's free for all of its students, a modern private hospital and it's free for all patients. So the "poverty incidences that remain highest in mining-affected communities" is fiction story by some emotional environmentalists. A few kilometers outside Brgy Rio Tuba, even in the municipal proper of Bataraza, there is more poverty, more unemployment, zero hospital available. See the photos and you will fume more