Philippines Update
Published by MAC on 2006-04-21
Philippines Update
21st April 2006
The Philippine government continues to promote mining as the saviour of the economy, and looks for new ways to placate the opposition, including asking opponents to join them, new warnings to companies to clean up their act and the idea of a some form of militarised environmental task force (the product of the new head of the Department of Natural Resources, who is an ex-army man). However, even the promise to review their much-criticised mining legislation is doing little to placate opposition, especially the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. This is mainly because of back-tracking that is making the promise look increasingly hollow. Faced with this situation communities continue to take the initiative in opposing projects through investigation missions, protest and continued legal action.