Reading 9: Corporate imperialism in the Philippines. Tujan, A. Jr., in Evans, G., Goodman, J.

, &
Lansbury, N. (Eds.), (2002). Moving mountains: Communities confront mining & globalization. New York: Zed Books

xxx, mineral production in the Philippines has been colonial in character, characterised by the
large-scale extraction of minerals for export mainly to the colonising country at dirt-cheap prices.
This chapter will seek to show how a grand effort to liberalise Philippine mining in the 1990s
was thwarted through a nationally coordinated campaign by a broad movement involving
grassroots activists, indigenous communities, Church workers, environmental activists and
others. This campaign resulted in a decline in production and the departure of many
transnational corporation (TNC) investments that had originally been attracted by the
liberalisation policy. This campaign lasted more than three years and achieved an
unprecedented victory in the Philippines against imperialist corporations mining operations.
History of Philippine Mining. Large-scale mining was instituted by foreign corporations
since the turn of the last century, prompting American colonial administrators to pass the Mining
Code of 1905 which took over tribal lands and allowed extensive corporate control over mining
areas. This pattern of exploitation was continued even after independence and took the form of
neo-colonial economic domination and exploitation mainly through the transnational mining
corporations. Thus mineral production in the Philippines has traditionally been dominated by
large mining corporations such as Benguet Consolidated, Philex Mining, Marcopper, and Atlas
Mining. Typically, these corporations trace their history to American colonial times, with strong
equity and financial linkages with transnational mineral interests in Japan, the US, Canada and
Australia. Through such corporations, the Philippines mining industry became enmeshed in a
global network of giant mining and metals corporations. Non-economic factors such as political
domination were translated into super-profits in the production of ores. Costs were held down as
corporations are able to underpay mining workers, minimise royalty payments for the non-
renewable resources of Third World countries, and benefit from the relative lack of
environmental controls.
In spite of a general decline from the 1980s, speculative activity in the Philippines mining
industry continued, and global production in copper, gold, silver, chromite and nickel increased
xxx However, depressed international metal prices combined with declining productivity (due to
outdated machinery and labour problems) resulted in an overall decline in Philippine mineral
production and export (see Figures 2 and 3). This decline would seem unacceptable to
imperialist corporations considering the great potential for profits from Philippine mining.
Despite its relatively small land area, the Philippines is second only to Indonesia in terms of
geological prospectivity and was second only to South Africa in gold production per square
kilometre; it is also ranked third globally in copper reserves and sixth in chromite. While the
Philippines has been a major global producer of ore, at least until the 1980s, the country has
been assessed to be producing only ten per cent of its potential. I Mineral production, especially
in gold, copper, chromite and nickel, reached its peak in the early 1980s. Gold production
peaked between 1980 and 1990.
Globalising Philippine Mining. Recognising the great potential for the mining sector to
earn foreign exchange through incoming investment and ore exports, mining was made part of a
comprehensive program of corporate globalisation implemented by former President Fidel
Ramos. In 1993 he launched 'Philippines 2000', a comprehensive economic development
program which promised to industrialise the country by promoting corporate investment and
aggressively implementing structural adjustment. This five-year program covered 1993-1998
and was premised on the Philippines' accession to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs
(GATT) Uruguay Round. The 'Philippines 2000' blueprint systematically liberalised finance,
trade and investment, and saw the privatisation of state utilities, social services and other
assets. This succeeded in attracting investment similar to its then-touted Asian tiger cub
neighbours until the Asian financial crisis of 1997. .
 In the mining sector in the 1990s, the Ramos administration sought to respond to
corporate complaints, mainly from the American, Australian and New Zealand Chambers of
Commerce and Industry, pointing to factors that hobbled corporate investment in mining.
Foremost among these factors was the constitutional prohibition on majority foreign ownership
in mining companies. Foreign investors were also wary of increased activism among
environmentalists as exemplified by the opposition to tailings disposal by Marcopper Mining,
indigenous peoples as in the case of open-pit mining by Benguet Consolidated and militant
trade unionism as in the case of Atlas Mining. .
The main strategy in the Ramos blueprint for the mining sector was the enactment of a
new Mining Act of 1995. This new law was significant in that it permitted 100 per cent foreign
ownership of mining. Operators skirting constitutional prohibitions to foreign ownership of milling
companies through Financial and Technical Assistance Agreements - FTAAs - and Exploration
Permits (EPAs). The. Act also granted Mineral Agreements for Philippine majority equity
corporations.
The deal was. sweetened dramatically by granting FTAA holders various rights. Similar
to those provided under the US Colonial Mining Law of 1905. Besides rights to explore and
mine the ore, the law granted foreign mining corporations water rights, timber rights and
easement rights. These corporations were also offered fiscal incentives beyond the already
preferential treatment they enjoy under the Omnibus Investment Code. Slicing-up of the
Philippines like a mining pie, the country was divided into meridional blocks. These wars offered
on a first-come first-served basis to mostly foreign mining corporations, reminiscent of the
Spanish and American colonial eras. The meridional block system disregards the actual
activities of communities on the surface.
The response to the Mining Act exceeded expectations. A total of 62 FTAA applications
were received by 1996, and 84 by 1998, mainly from the major global mining concerns like Rio
Tinto, Newmont, Climax, and Western Mining. In fact, corporate interest was so high that 17 of
these applications were actually filed before the Act was passed into law. Even before the law
was passed, President Ramos approved the FTAA applications of Arimco (Climax) in Nueva
Vizcaya, North-Central Philippines, and Western Mining Corporation straddling the former
Cotabato provinces of Mindanao, Southern Philippines.
The Mining Act is a, clear example of how the current neo-liberal economic paradigm is
translated into the wholesale opening up of Third WorId natural resources to corporate
exploitation, especially by global monopoly corporations. Not only does it remove investment
controls for foreign exploitation of mineral resources, but the Act provides more privileges and
incentives over the welfare of the country's environment, its rural communities and its
indigenous peoples.
The People's Fight. The Mining Act or Republic Act No. 7942 was signed into law on 6
March 1995 without much fanfare and opposition. As previously mentioned, the mining industry
had been on the decline and consequently most protests against mining companies had also
declined. The World Trade Organisation and other issues under the Philippines 2000 program
of the Ramos administration occupied the attention of most activist organisations.
This situation changed dramatically after the accident at the Marcopper mine in Marinduque
province, Western Philippines, an accident of unparalleled proportions in Philippine history.
Marcopper, a subsidiary company of the Canadian-based multinational, Placer Dome, had
become the largest copper 'mining operation in the country. It had already been in the public
eye after a series of environmental controversies mainly involving the release of mine tailings
directly 'into Calancan Bay. On 24 March 1996, millions of tons of mine tailings stored in its old
open-pit mine were accidentally released into the Boac and Makulapnit rivers. It took four
months before the leak was plugged. In the meantime; the four million tons of mine tailings
released had destroyed ten million hectares of agricultural lands and affected a total 126 million
hectares of land around the rivers. A twenty-six kilometre stretch of the river was declared
biologically dead five days after the accident.
The Marcopper labour union, MELU-NAMAWU, reported that the spill affected 14
villages and initially isolated more than a thousand families, and threatened to swamp another
20 villages. Damage was estimated to be US$700,000 worth of marine life and US$200,000
worth of milkfish fry. Catching milkfish fry through crude nets in the shallow coastlines is a major
source of livelihood of poor fisher folk who do not own fishing boats and nets." The waste
exuded hydrogen sulphide and nitrous' oxide vapours and residents complained of cases of skin
irritation and respiratory problems, and a number of people were hospitalised after drinking
water and eating fish contaminated by the spill.
Unprecedented in scale in more than a century of large-scale mining in the country, the
Marcopper accident shocked and traumatised the Philippine nation. Previous community and
environmental battles against mining had already highlighted such risks. Furthermore, since
Marcopper had a long-running conflict with the Marinduque residents and the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) over environmental issues, there were suspicions
that the tailings were intentionally released.
Beyond the issues of extent of damage and remuneration, the attention of the public
readily shifted to the newly enacted Mining Act. At the time, the IBON Foundation published an
expose on the Mining Act that pointed out the greater danger of environmental disasters from
large-scale mining as well as issues of indigenous people's rights and national patrimony'
National outrage at the Marcopper mine disaster was quickly transformed into' a nation-wide
campaign against the Mining Act, and against large-scale mining by transnational corporations
in general. The issues were taken up by many of the political forces in the Philippines, and
various avenues of protest were utilised, from the streets and pickets, to the media and the
Congress.
As a result, the government was forced to delay approval of pending FTAA applications -
all except the two initially approved by Ramos. This was a significant victory, but it was not
sufficient. People's organisations wanted the Act repealed, and many wanted large-scale
corporate mining ended altogether. A sustained campaign was necessary.
In the network of the militant political organisation, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or
New Patriotic Alliance), the initial protests were consolidated into regional conferences which
warmed up the people's understanding and analysis of the. lssues. Action plans were drawn up
and protest coalitions created. Similar processes were implemented by some indigenous and
environmental networks and coalitions, as well as church social action networks. The following
action was taken:
 In April 1996, a People's Regional Mining Conference was held in the Cordillera region,
a traditional centre of large-scale mining in the Northern Philippines. This was
organised by Bayan and the Cordillera People's Alliance, and attended by 30 delegates
representing 87 grassroots organisations and coalitions. Besides rejecting of the
Mining Act of 1995, the conference resolved to resist any exploration work done by
mining companies.
 In September 1996, a similar conference was also convened for all the Visayas islands
in the central part of the country. This was spearheaded by the National Council of
Churches in the Philippines. Following this conference, protest actions were held in
various Visayan Islands, including a rally on Negros Island on
October where more than 15,000 mobilised.
 In October 1996 another conference was held, gathering various indigenous peoples in
Mindanao, Southern Philippines. This focused on the impacts of the Western Mining
Corporation (WMC) FTAA in Cotabato. A conference was also held in Nueva
Vizcaya, gathering representatives from all communities covered by Arimco’s FTAA
operation.
 Throughout the archipelago, grassroots and community-based organisations,
environmentalists, civic organisations, tribal communities, churches and other religious
organisations started researching the corporations that had applied for FTAA, MPSA and
exploration permits in their province or region. They launched information and education
campaigns drawing on existing publications such as the IBON Special Release and produced
their own materials.
The widespread and sustained protests calling for the scrapping of the Mining Act had
immediate effects on the government. Besides the unofficial but effective freeze in the granting
of new FTAAs, a Bill was filed in Congress for the repeal of the Mining Act.
However, these were only temporary victories, as the WMC and Arimco FTAAs were still
being developed. It was not yet certain that the Mining Act would be repealed. As the dust
settled, the Mines and Geoservices Bureau (MGB) or the President could potentially resume
awarding FT AAs. In the meantime, numerous exploration permits and Mineral Production
Sharing Agreements (MPSAs) were being awarded as a number of foreign FTAA applicants
withdrew in favour of exploration or joint production.
Unprecedented Mobilisation. The nationally coordinated campaign against the Mining
Act, and all operations of mining corporations which was launched in 1996, continues up to the
present. This includes a sustained campaign for the repeal of the law and a freeze in the
awarding of new FTAAs through coordinated popular mobilisation. It includes protests at the
WMC and Arimco mining operations and protests against exploration activities, protests against
operations of other large-scale mining operations existing before the Mining Act or under the
MPSA .
Mining Bans. Large demonstrations were held intermittently from 1996 to 1999. In
March 1998 more than five hundred representatives of indigenous peoples, church people, and
farmers and others went to Manila, travelling from Pampanga, Zambales, Aurora and other
provinces in central Luzon and Southern Tagalog regions. They demonstrated at government
offices demanding the scrapping of the Mining Act and the withdrawal of all FTAAs, MPSAs and
EPAs granted by the Ramos government.
Between 1996 and 1999, campaign caravans were used to ensure maximum participation
of activists and to take the campaign to various towns in a large island or a province. Caravans
were held in the Cordillera region, Negros Island, Panay Island and in the
provinces in the far south of Mindanao and served to dramatise the call to scrap the Mining Act
and end existing mining operations. In these caravans more than 100 vehicles moved from one
town to the next, campaigning along the way. At every stop, rallies were held which mobilised
local townsfolk.
Reflecting these mobilisations, local victories against mining corporations have been quite
dramatic. In the province of Capiz in Panay Island, environmentalists and militant activists led by
the Madyaas Environment Coalition campaigned against the granting of Australian Company,
Minera Mt Isa's, application for a 80,919 hectare FTAA. The Coalition conducted sustained
'lobbying with the support of progressive members of the Capiz Provincial Board. Government
approval of MPSA applications for a joint venture created by Mt Isa, and for its initial exploration
work in Capiz, resulted in widespread protest. In response, the provincial government banned
commercial mining in the province for 15 years. This campaign was supported by research
provided by the Australian NGO, the Mineral Policy Institute.
A similar measure was passed in neighbouring Iloilo province where residents had
previously barricaded roads leading to the mines operated by Malampay Mining Company, a
subsidiary of Phelps Dodge Philippines." These provincial laws contravened the Mining
Act and existing national legislation, but effectively put a stop to exploration activities by
transnational corporations. These have never been overruled nor questioned before the
Supreme Court.
 A more significant achievement than local legislation banning corporate mining is the
departure of Climax Arimco and Western Mining Corporation from their mining development
projects on separate occasions in 2000. After pouring US$30 million into mining development in
four years, WMC decided to withdraw its operations in its South Cotabato FTAA in February
2000, acknowledging social and political challenges posed by the project - the result of a
combination of advocacy from anti-mining activists, sustained protests from B'laan indigenous
communities and solidarity action by Australian activists.
Climax Arimco also proceeded with its mining development in spite of intense opposition
from local residents, mostly belonging to the Kankanaey, Ibaloi, Bungkalot and Ifugao tribes.
Besides petitions and rallies, the residents also undertook a people's initiative in July 1999, a
referendum that is guaranteed by the 1987 Constitution and several laws. Although an
Environmental Compliance Certificate was issued to Climax Arimco on 11 August 1999 which
allowed it to proceed with its gold/copper mining project, drilling and exploratory activities were
halted and its employees were retrenched later in July 2000.
In October 2000, the Regional Development Council rejected Climax Arimco' s operation
in the region, on the grounds that the target area was a watershed and that mining was beyond
the development priorities of the region. National economic and mining government agencies
lobbied for the reversal of the decision but a subsequent meeting on 23 February 2001 upheld
the previous decision in the midst of counter mobilisations by anti-mining organisations. In
the meantime, residents continue to press the demand to close the Climax Arimco FT AA and
the Mining Act through a series of protest actions.
Victories in Contesting Corporate Mining. The victories notched up by the Filipino
people's struggles against corporate mining can be traced to various factors, but mostly to the
firm resolve of a people who did not want a repeat of the Marcopper disaster. This brought out
their creativity in launching protests and other struggles, and by linking up strong local
movements with environmentalist movements. A rapid process of capacity building ensued
among indigenous peoples who were now confronted not only with tear of the 'new white man in
helicopters', but also the potential permanent loss of their ancestral domain to him.
The campaign against corporate mining also transformed the environmental movement,
which had been focused on environmental protection and biodiversity conservation. Through the
campaign, the issue of environmental degradation was clearly linked with neo-colonial corporate
exploitation and its direct impact on the livelihood and physical displacement of rural
communities.
This 'horizontal' networking was also strengthened with 'vertical' networking. Besides
linking and consequently developing various interest groups and issue-based organisations,
networks linked local groups with provincial and national entities. Conferences and fora
provided effective venues for creating linkages that eventually led to coordinated actions.
International networks and solidarity provided crucial support through research, increasing
pressure through protests and policy advocacy such as shareholder action in the home
countries of the global corporations.
Protests were grounded in respective constituencies, and as a result became concrete
and effective rallying points for popular consciousness raising and action. Local struggles
touched mainly on loss of rural livelihood and negative effects of environmental degradation of
land, air, river and coastal areas, and loss of ancestral domain and sacred sites. The negative
environmental impacts were interpreted in terms of the dislocation of livelihoods of upland and
lowland farmers and fisher folk.
Another important factor was that the people relied on their own militant struggle through
pickets, rallies, caravans and barricades, and combined this with various forms of engaging
government through petitions and lobbying. This created a synergy that made their militant
action even more effective. Government offices and officials. from the local level up to the
national level became targets for petitions and protest actions. Legal processes such as
issuance of clearances, official permits, hearings, legislative processes and judicial processes
were all used to highlight the opposition in conjunction with militant protest actions. These
protests were sustained and remained viable even after three years.
As a result of the people's determination and persistence there have been concrete
victories. The national government's Mining Act has been neutralised in spite of the power and
influence of the existing and incoming global mining corporations. Taking advantage of this
neutralisation, there have been victories at the local level with the enactment of laws prohibiting
corporate mining, and the perhaps permanent delaying of the two flagship mining projects.
Finally, the Filipino people - have come out of this campaign even stronger in terms of their
resolve and capacity to fight corporate mining, and are now vigilant against all forms of
encroachment by global mining corporations. The protests have caused the continued decline of
corporate mining in the Philippines. The Philippines is no longer anywhere among the global top
mineral exporters. In 1992, Philippine ore production was considered in its lowest decline but
still held the 13th global rank in gold and 16th in copper production. By 1998, it had dropped to
20th in global gold production, 23rd in copper, and improved to 11th from 14th in nickel in 1997.
There has been stagnation and even decline in the mining industry. This decline is most
dramatic in exports and foreign investment. Instead of increasing the number of large-scale
mines as expected from the Mining Act, total mines in operation have actually declined in 1998
and 1999.
This decline in the mineral ore production (as well as the continued decline of timber
exports) has been greeted with satisfaction and pride by Filipinos who know only too well the
consequences of corporate mining.
National Patrimony and Imperialist Globalisation. The nationally coordinated
campaign against corporate mining in the Philippines was sustained over several years because
it was founded on struggles that sprang from or focused on specific issues against mining.
However, the overarching theme in the Philippine struggle against corporate mining is the issue
of national patrimony which in the Philippine context defines natural resources as commonly
held national treasures entrusted to the state for safekeeping.
This concept has been taken up by the various political groups and grassroots
organisations, as well as churches and other institutions that took up the cause of the Mining
Act.
With the Mining Act, the government is seen as directly destroying the Filipino people's
patrimony and betraying their trust. Their only option is to stand up and fight.
As then Bayan Secretary General, Nathaniel Santiago, stated, 'We have surrendered our
national patrimony. The Mining Act restores the economic and political colonial set-up under the
guise of liberalisatIon and globalisation. There is nothing left to do but scrap [this law] and fight
[this government)'.
It has been generally recognised by all sectors along a broad front sympathetic to the
campaign against the Mining Act, that neo-liberal globalisation is behind this renewed corporate
interest which has meant the opening up of an important natural resource for unbridled
exploitation by global corporations. While direct negative effects on livelihood and the
environment are the immediate concerns of the protests, these have been placed in the context
of corporate power and profits. .
Global mining corporations realise super-profits by reducing operating costs through
cheap wages mineworkers that are still below the already low decent living costs, and are
obscenely lower than wages in industrialised countries. They also reduce operating costs by
scrimping on measures necessary for reducing environmental degradation such as building and
maintaining effective tailings dams and instituting non-polluting measures for disposal of wastes.
For example, open-pit mining has become the favourite method because it reduces labour costs
and is generally cheaper - yet it is environmentally degrading.
 Even more difficult to cost than the environmental degradation is the loss of non-
renewable mineral resources and the impacts of mining operations to the ancestral domain of
indigenous peoples. In this respect, the issue of super-profits for imperialist mining corporations
takes on a different aspect. The overwhelming unity of indigenous peoples against the entry of
mining corporations mirrors campaigns in defence of the national patrimony of an
underdeveloped Third WorId country such as the Philippines.
The Mining Act, though unrepealed, now remains unimplementable because people
have become empowered and vigilant. Mining corporations have been constantly pressured and
forced to introduce more effective measures of waste disposal and management. Deception,
subterfuge, PR activities, harassment and even outright military intervention have all failed. to
subdue an enlightened and empowered Philippine people. Global corporations are now
wondering how attractive an investment site the Philippines is, considering the social and legal
concerns they now have to face if they enter, or if they stay. New entrants are finding that the
Philippines is not exactly heaven for global mining corporations as even exploration
activities are subjected to protests. For many people this is a significant victory in the campaign
against the continued environmental degradation of the Philippines.
The problem of mine tailings disposal remains unsolved, partly because of technical
difficulties, especially with the volume of tailings produced by open-pit mining. But this lingering
problem is also due to the lack of commitment from profit-conscious corporate mining with the
collusion of government. In the face of this situation, many people would rather end corporate
mining altogether, even at least temporarily, until such time that the environmental issues are
resolved convincingly.
For many people, this campaign is a significant victory for democracy, especially for the
economic and political rights of the marginalised rural sectors such as the small peasants, fisher
folk and indigenous peoples whose subsistence agriculture is dependent on the wellbeing of the
environment. As Joan Carling, chairperson of the Cordillera People's Alliance declared, 'The
victory of the Cordillera people against Climax Arimco, as well as the victory of the "Iumads"
or Aborigines of Mindanao against Western Mining Corporation, is a significant victory in our
people's struggle for self-determination, for our ancestral domain, for democracy in our country,
and for our very existence.
For many people, this is also a significant victory for national patrimony and sovereignty
against a subservient Philippine government and against imperialist mining corporations. It is a
victory in the national struggle against foreign domination, a victory founded on the people's
assertion of their sovereignty. Putting the Philippines outside the global map of top mineral
producers is a significant victory of the Filipino people's struggle against imperialism in the form
of the global mining corporations.
What the Philippines has lost by way of new corporate investment and foreign currency
earnings from mineral exports is insignificant compared to what the country has gained. The
Filipino people have preserved their natural resources and national patrimony, protected their
environment from extreme degradation, secured their people's livelihood from irreparable
damage, prevented the genocide of its indigenous communities, and achieved national and
democratic power.
Reading 7.1: ALAMIN and the Mindoro nickel project, 1993-2013
Gibson, T. (2015). Sacrifice and sharing in the Philippine highlands: Religion and society among the Buid of Mindoro. Quezon City:
Ateneo de Manila University Press

During Corazon Aquino's presidency, the political situation in the Philippines slowly returned to
the pre-Martial Law system of formal democracy controlled by an oligarchic elite. This elite
proved amenable to the neo-Iiberal restructuring of the global economy that took place during
the 1980s. During the administration of President Ramos (1993-1998), a systematic effort was
made to pass legislation that would allow foreign corporations to invest in the Philippines and
exploit its natural resources. At the same time, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the
full embrace of the "capitalist road" in China the following year led to the splintering of the
revolutionary left in the Philippines. In 1993, the Communist Party split into a wing that
"reaffirmed" its commitment to protracted guerrilla war and a wing that "rejected" it as
outmoded. The center of social activism in the Philippines shifted decisively from the
revolutionary to the democratic left, which was forced to develop new strategies to resist the
neo-Iiberal restructuring of the national economy (Quimpo 2008, 56-68).
In Mindoro over the past twenty years, these global forces have played themselves out
as a conflict between sustainable agricultural production and the development of large-scale
mining. During this period, Oriental and accidental Mindoro became two of the provinces
producing the largest rice surplus in the Philippines, while transnational mining corporations
discovered that Mindoro contained some of the richest deposits of nickel ore in the world. The
most important question facing both the indigenous and the lowland peoples of Mindoro today is
whether its economy will continue to be based on local food production or whether it will come
to be dominated by corporate mining and plantation agriculture. For the first time in Mindoro's
history, indigenous and lowland farmers have come to recognize that they share a common
interest in protecting the water and soil of the island against a common external enemy: the
global mining industry. They have also come to realize that they will have to organize on a
national and even global level to defeat this enemy.

The Philippine Mining Act of 1995

The stage was set for the exploitation of the mineral wealth of the Philippines on 8
September 1993, when President Ramos commissioned a multi-sect oral task force to assess
the needs of the mineral sector. The task force was dominated by public official from the Mine
and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) and by private interest from the Chamber of Mines of the
Philippines (COMP). The main objective of the mining lobby was the lifting of the 40% ceiling on
foreign ownership of mining ventures contained in Article XII, Section II of the Constitution of
1987. This was accomplished with the Philippine Mining Act of March 1995 (RA 7942), which
allowed up to 100 percent foreign ownership of mining operations. Companies were allowed to
operate for a maximum of fifty years and to occupy an area of up to 81,000 hectares, within
which they could enjoy rights to timber, water and certain easements. Additional incentives
included tax holidays and the ability to repatriate 100 percent of their capital and profits. These
provisions were strongly backed by the World Bank. Future President Gloria Arroyo sponsored
the legislation while she was a member of the Philippine Senate.
World nickel consumption rose from less than one million tons per year in 1995 to 1.6
million tons in 2010. Between 2000 and 2010, China's consumption of nickel rose from about
10,000 tons per year to almost 500,000 tons. As growing demand drove the price of nickel to
new heights on world markets, it became profitable to refine nickel from the lateritic soils found
in many tropical countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia, New Caledonia and Cuba.
Extracting nickel from these soils requires the use of highly sophisticated, capital-intensive
technologies. First, all of the topsoil in the area to be mined must be stripped away. The
underlying lateritic soil is then subjected to the "High Pressure Acid Leach" (HPAL) process.
 This process leaves behind large quantities of heavy metals and sulfides, which if they
come into contact with rainwater and atmospheric oxygen will oxidize into sulfuric acid. Waste
dumps must thus be covered in a layer of clay, a layer of soil and a layer of vegetation to hold
them in place. The chances of implementing an environmentally sustainable system of nickel
mining in the Philippines seem remote, given that the country lies in the center of the
typhoon zone and suffers periodic torrential rains that induce landslides exacerbated by
deforestation and erosion, and that local political institutions suffer from too much
corruption and inefficiency to ensure effective enforcement of the expensive safety measures
this kind of mining requires."
Within months of the passage of the Philippine Mining Act, fifty applications for Financial
or Technical Assistance Agreements (FTAA) were with the Mines and Geosciences Bureau
(Chaloping, March 2011, 5). By the end of 1997, mining applications had been submitted which
covered 36% of the total area of Mindoro. On March 1997, Mindex Resources Development
Corporation received an Exploration Permit to prospect for nickel on 9,720 hectares situated at
the headwaters of the Magasawang Tubig River. The permit affected lands belonging to
members of the Alangan, Tadyawan, Bangon-Ruwang and Tawbuid tribes.

The Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997

Because most mining would take place in the mountainous lands occupied by the
indigenous peoples of the Philippines, new legislation was also required to provide mining
corporations with access to these lands. Legislation to implement the Constitution's provisions
recognizing indigenous rights was passed in 1997 as the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA).
It required mining companies to gain the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of indigenous
peoples before engaging in the exploration, development, exploitation and utilization of natural
resources within their ancestral domains. It also required military and paramilitary forces to gain
consent before establishing temporary or permanent military facilities within ancestral domains.
Following the advice of the National Commission on Indigenous People, Mindex
Resources set about creating a captive Indigenous Peoples Organization that could provide the
needed FPIC for its operations. In 1998, a Mangyan employee of Mindex named Salome Yedel
organized a group of Bangon-Ruwang, Buhid and Tadyawan living near the Mindex concession
into an IPO called the Lupaing Ninuno Kabilogan ng Mangyan Inc. (KMI). The officers of this
organization were chosen inside the Mindex compound under the watchful eye of the
corporation. After setting up the KMI, Salome Yedel moved on to organize a second IPO called
the Samahang Apo Dia Alangan ng Kisluyan (SADAKI), which purported to represent members
of the Alangan and Tadyawan tribes affected by the Mindex nickel mining project (Goodland and
Wicks 2008, 152).

The Alliance Against Mining (ALAMIN) and the Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), 1999-2013
In response to Mindex's manipulation of the Mining Act and IPRA, both highlanders and
lowlanders in Mindoro realized that the Mindoro Nickel Project (MNP) threatened the water
resources on which they all depended on. Their common interests received formal expression in
May 1999 with the formation of the Alliance Against Mining in Oriental Mindoro (ALAMIN). Its
members included IP [Indigenous Peoples] federations, fisherfolk and farmer organizations,
NGOs, civic groups, business groups, medical practitioners, lawyers, teachers and other
professionals, students, environmentalists and artists, government officials and workers and
social and human rights activists. (Maliwanag and Gariguez n.d.)
A key leader of this movement was Father Edwin Gariguez (b. 1963), a native of Quezon
Province who had worked in Mindoro since 1993. xxx
To follow what came next, it is necessary to note that the corporate interests behind the
MNP kept changing their composition and location over the following decade. Mindex ASA was
originally a Norwegian corporation. On 29 February 2000, it sold 97.7% of its shares to a
Canadian corporation called the Crew Development Corporation. The Philippine subsidiary of
Mindex ASA, Mindex Resources Development Inc. (MRDI), was renamed Crew Minerals
Philippines Inc (CMPI). The latter company was placed under the management of Crew
Minerals of Norway, the non-gold division of the Crew Development Corporation of Canada.
Following a scandal that led to the resignation of President Joseph Estrada, Gloria
Arroyo was installed as President of the Philippines on 20 January 2001. On 16 July 2001, her
new Secretary of the Department or Environment and Natural Resources, Heherson Alvarez,
formally revoked the Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) that his predecessor had
signed with the Aglubang Mining Corporation (AMC), the Philippine subsidiary of Crew
Development Corporation. On 1 March 2002, ALAMIN followed up this victory by persuading the
Provincial Council or Oriental Mindoro to pass an ordinance declaring a twenty-five (25) year
moratorium on all mining in the province.
Crew Minerals responded to these setbacks by renewing their lobbying of the Office of
the President, and in March 2004, the MPSA was abruptly reinstated. In February 2005, the
Supreme Court finally ruled that the Agreements that mining corporations had signed with the
Mines and Geosciences Bureau during the previous ten years were constitutional, even if they
gave foreign companies ownership rights to Filipino resources (Alyansa Laban sa Minya 2013).
Faced with open support for the mining industry by the President and the Supreme
Court, local anti-mining organizations around the country came together in 2005 to form the
Alyansa Tigil Mina (Anti-Mining Alliance [ATM].) It had become clear that local opposition forces
were not powerful enough to counteract the wealth and influence that transnational corporations
could bring to bear on the national government. A decision was made to take the struggle to a
new level, and to lobby the governments of the nations in which the corporations were
based.
In July and August 2006, the ATM persuaded a British fact-finding mission headed by
former Member of Parliament Clare Short to visit the Philippines and investigate its mining
policies. The following month, Father Gariguez and Ramil Baldo, an Alangan from the area
directly affected by the Mindoro Nickel Project, traveled to Oslo and London to lobby the
Norwegian and British Parliaments against the MNP. The British mission issued a highly critical
report in January 2007 (Doyle et al., 2007; MacKinnon 2007).
In December 2006, Crew Minerals acquired a new board and share-holders, changed its
name again to Intex Resources to distinguish itself from the Crew Gold Corporation, and began
trading as ITX. In January 2007, the Alangan leader who had accompanied Father Gariguez to
Norway was secretly taken by the military to meet with the new President of Intex in Manila. He
was persuaded to drop his opposition to the MNP and was made the president of SADIKA, one
of the two puppet organizations that had been set up by Mindex Resources in 1998 (Gariguez
2007).
In October, 2007, the Norwegian ambassador to Manila issued a report concluding
that the vast majority of the Mangyan were opposed to the Mindoro Nickel Project (Risa 2007;
Norwegian Contact Point 2011).
In February 2008, the British Work Group on Mining in the Philippines (WGMP) made
a return trip to Mindoro and also concluded that the vast majority of the Mangyans were
opposed to the mine (Goodland and Wicks 2008). Their findings were confirmed by a report issued on
9 October 2008 by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, and by a report issued
on 28 November 2011 by the Norwegian National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines
for Multinational Enterprises (Norwegian Contact Point 2011).
The Arroyo administration simply ignored these negative reports because the
economic stakes had become so high. In 2004, the Philippines was producing only 17,000 tons
of refined nickel equivalent per year, but by 2009 production had risen to 137,000 tons. On 14
November 2009, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources issued an
Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) to Intex Resources that covered 11,600 hectares of
forested land at the headwaters of the Mag-asawang Tubig River, the source of irrigation water
for 50,000 hectares of rice fields in northern Mindoro.
Two days later, Father Gariguez led an eleven-day hunger strike in front of the DENR
offices in Quezon City. The strike generated national publicity, and the ECC was revoked on 27
November 2009 (Acuna 2010).
Intex continued to lobby for the project, however, and in February 2010 it released a
Definitive Feasibility Study that projected the production of over a million tons of refined nickel
over the course of twenty years’ worth $17 billion (Aker Solutions 2013). Intex's initial capital
investment in the project would be $2.5 billion (Intex Resources 2014). As an indication of just how
enormous these sums were in relation to the local economy, the annual Gross Regional
Domestic Product (GRDP) of the region that includes Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and
Palawan (MIMAROPA), was only $1.4 billion in 2007 (Philippine Statistics Authority 2007).
Intex suffered another setback when Benigno Aquino III was inaugurated as President
of the Philippines on 30 June 2010. Two days later, his administration appointed eleven
additional members to the team investigating the MNP, including Father Gariguez and Ponyong
Kadlos, a Hanunoo Mangyan who was President of the KPLN, the association of seven
indigenous peoples organizations in Mindoro (Department of Environment and Natural Resources 2010). On 3
March 2011, the CEO of Intex, Erland Grimstad, stepped down "in the wake of 'severe setbacks'
suffered by the Norwegian mining firm in its Mindoro project" (Mindoro Post 2011).
Even in this hostile political climate, the stakes remained too great for the interests
behind Intex to simply abandon the project. In 2011, Philippine nickel production reached 20
million metric tons of nickel ore, 91 percent of which was purchased by China. The Philippines is
now tied with Indonesia as the second largest nickel producer in the world after Russia. On 15
January 2012, Intex announced that it had concluded a Project Management Contract with
China's MCC8 Group backed by $133 million in financing from the China International Trust and
Investment Company-Global Emerging Markets (CITIC-GEM) fund. CITIC is China's largest native
multinational company with $125 billion of total assets, a figure that approaches the entire GDP
of the Philippines in 2010, which was $199 billion.