Mindanaoan senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. today warned the Arroyo government not to neglect the rights of small-scale miners as the government opens the Diwalwal gold-rush site to big mining companies, among them foreign-owned.
Pimentel said small-scale miners ?want an assurance that their means of livelihood and their welfare will be protected with the entry of mining firms and their foreign partners.?
A giant power company plans to build a hydroelectric plant in Tudaya, a village in Davao del Sur. Proponents of the project said the plant would “not only offer solution to the power crisis in the offing, but at the same time provide livelihood opportunities and other benefits to the communities.” The Lumads in the area, however, are up in arms, claiming that the plant would desecrate Tudaya Falls, which is their worship ground, and destroy their way of life. They also accuse Hedcor, the power company, of misleading members of the tribe. They expressed their opposition to the project by holding a sacred ritual last week. Davao Today?s Cheryll D. Fiel was there.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, in a statement issued today, warned that more chemical poisoning -- such as the one that happened in the Tadeco banana plantation last Wednesday --…
Nearly 80 individuals, most of them schoolchildren, fell ill on Wednesday after they were exposed to toxic fumes from the banana plantation of Tadeco, which is owned by the Floirendos, in Dujali, Davao del Norte, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported. Authorities said at least 30 of the children passed out after inhaling a chemical used to kill worms in banana plants, the paper said.
This incident, the latest in a string of chemical poisoning in the Philippines the past week, is sure to revive the debate in Davao on how banana plantations are using chemicals, particularly aerial spraying. This early, one environment group warned that what happened in Dujali could happen in Davao.
By Daisy C. Gonzales and Carlos H. Conde Mt. Diwalwal is said to hold the Philippines? largest gold deposit, perhaps one of the largest in the world, according to the…
