This story was
taken from Bulatlat, the
weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net,
Vol. V, No. 37, October
23-29, 2005
Mines over Citrus in Nueva Vizcaya
10,000 rights
violations reported due to mining
To the farmers, Ifugao
communities, some business leaders and
government
officials of Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya, northern
a far worthy
treasure more than mines exists in a budding citrus fruit
industry in
their province blessed with fertile land, a hospitable
climate and lush
forests.
BY FELICISIMO
MANALANSAN
Bulatlat
Citrus or mines?
To the farmers, Ifugao
communities, some business leaders and
government
officials of Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya, northern
a far worthy
treasure more than mines exists in a budding citrus fruit
industry in
their province blessed with fertile land, a hospitable
climate and lush
forests.
Despite of the
billions of pesos expected to be gained from the
Citrus farms,
government favors the extractive, destructive mining by the
Australian
Climax-Arimco Mining Corp. (CAMC), recently renamed
Australasian
Mining.
This threat of
foreign mining on Nueva Vizcaya’s citrus fruit farms
was among the
highlights of the mining forum entitled “
Life and
Resources” held on Oct. 10 at the Quezon City Memorial
Circle Seminar
Hall. Organized by Defend Patrimony, the forum was attended
By more than 100
participants who later on marched to the Department of
Environment and
Natural Resources (DENR) in a symbolic protest
action.
A budding citrus
druit industry
Anti-mining
groups in Nueva Vizcaya have vowed to oppose the
Australasian
Mining under the Didipio Earth Savers Movement (Desama).
Desama leaders
who attended the conference believe that the mining
will devastate
the
land’s bounty to
the people of Didipio and the entire province.
“Parang di ekonomista
ang pangulo samantalang mas malaki ang kikitain
sa citrus kaysa sa
mining” (The President is not really an economist
considering that
citrus will yield more earnings compared to mining),
said Alfonso Acoje,
an agriculturist who claimed to have started the
citrus fruit
industry in Didipio in 1997.
Currently, 500
hectares of land in Didipio are planted to citrus
oranges. This is
projected to earn the province P806 billion ($14.6
billion at
P55:$1), according to a power point presentation during
the
forum. “Imagine
if instead of just 500 hectares, we could have 5,000
hectares of
citrus,” said Acoje whose plan to expand citrus farms to
benefit farmers
throughout the province is frustrated by the mining
company.
In contrast, according
to John Olandi of the Didipio Earth Savers
Movement (Desama),
CAMC forecasted a dismal $1.2 billion as proceeds
of its mine
after mine life. Furthermore, CAMC is silent about the
environmental
costs of its operations, Olandi said.
But Olandi alleges
CAMC’s bribery and “dirty tactics” are making it
hard for the
people of Didipio to make a united stand. Already 12
members of the Sangguniang
Panlalawigan (provincial council) of Nueva
Vizcaya gave
their consent to the mining project as against only one
opposed, says Olandi.
Australian CAMC
officials claimed they have the backing of the
national
government in the Financial and Technical Assistance
Agreement (FTAA)
for mining project.
Olandi also said
that since the mining company started in 1994, some
farmers from the
Ilocos provinces also started settling in Didipio.
He said these
settlers sold their land to the mining company and now
constitute the
“anomalous majority” favoring CAMC’s mining project.
More than 10,000
victims of rights violations
The forum also
cited a total of 10,500 individual victims of human
rights
violations related with mining projects throughout the country
in 1994-2005.
The violations
reflect a nationwide trend in human rights abuses in
places where
there are mining projects, according to Clemente
Bautista of Kalikasan
People’s Network for the Environment, a member of Defend Patrimony.
Nine activists opposing large-scale foreign
mining Projects have already been killed in
different parts of the country recently, he
said.
The groups Soccskargends
Agenda and Inpeace Mindanao accounted for
The rights
violations in 60 documented cases involving 3,181 families in 30 communities,
most of them indigenous B’laans, in the boundaries
of Saranggani, Davao del Sur,
Sultan Kudarat
and
cases were
documented by a solidarity and sympathy mission (SSM) led
by the two
groups last September.
The human rights
violations involved cases of massacre, frustrated
massacre,
strafing, torture, denial of medical attention, illegal
arrest, search
and seizure, harassment, displacement and
reconcentration
of communities, food blockade and divestment of
property.
According to the SSM report, human rights violations, happening from
1994 to January
2005, coincided with the entry in Tampakan, South
Cotabato, of
Australian-owned Western Mining Company (WMC), now
Sagittarius
Mining, Inc. (SMI), one of two transnational mining
corporations,
which hold existing Financial and Technical Assistance
Agreements
(FTAA) with the government.
The violations
also coincided with increased military operations in
the area. Five
battalions of the Philippine Army, including Scout
Rangers, patrol
the quadri-boundary within the vicinity of SMI’s mine
site. B’laan
leader Dulphing Ogan, secretary general of Kahugpungan sa mga Lumad sa Halayong
Habagatang Mindanaw (Kalubhamin), believes
there is coincidence in the entry and operation
of SMI and
increased military
presence in the quadri-boundary.
To him, SMI is directly and
indirectly to
blame for the human rights violations, adding that the
mining company
may even be funding the military operations in the
area.
“Hindi kaya ng
AFP (Armed Forces of the
sunud-sunod na mga
operasyon kung walang pondong nanggagaling sa SM”
(The AFP cannot
afford the series of multiple military operations
without funds
coming from the SMI), says Ogan.
“Where else can
we go?”
Meanwhile, B’laan
families in barangays Danlag and Tablao, Tampakan
are now being
coerced and intimidated to leave their dwellings and
farms to make
way for SMI’s operations, it was learned. Ogan says the
B’laan
communities in these barangays are located directly below the
base camp of
SMI. The communities will be buried with SMI’s mine
waste, says Ogan.
But most B’laans
in the said barangays do not want to leave, says
Ogan. Ogan
adds he foresees a repeat of bombing incidents in 1994
when a B’laan
woman and the child in her womb died when the military
resorted to
aerial bombardment to force B’laan communities out of
exploration
sites of the former WMC.
During the
forum, indigenous peoples of Cordillera revealed similar
threats of
displacement. Nearly half of the
million
hectares of
land, or 730,000 hectares are now applied for mining
permits by
transnational mining corporations (TNCs), according to
Pastor Vergel Aniceto
of the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA) and
APIT-TAKO.
“Saan na pupunta
ang mga Igorot, Kankana-ey, Kalinga at iba pa naming
katutubong mamamayan
ng Cordillera?” (Where else will the Igorots,
Kankana-ey, Kalinga
and other Cordillera indigenous peoples go?”
Aniceto asks.
Aniceto,
however, says that most people in Cordillera, including the
local
government, are determined to oppose new mining ventures in the
Cordillera
provinces. He cites as example a recent multi-stakeholders
meeting in
mining projects,
despite being denied to speak during the meeting.
The
multi-stakeholders meeting was convened by the Office of the
President
through presidential envoy for mining Delia Albert,
according to Aniceto.
Bulatlat
© 2005 Bulatlat
” Alipato Publications
Permission is
granted to reprint or redistribute this article,
provided its
author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and
notified.
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051027/lf_afp/afplifestyles_051027195738>
Thu Oct 27, 3:57 PM ET
Ilocano way of Cooking
BATAC, Philippines (AFP) - Bile stew, buffalo brains,
termites and raw
grasshoppers -- even by adventurous Asian tastes the cuisine of the
Over centuries such delicacies have blended by
necessity into the
gastronomic traditions of this parched northwestern corner of the
The tamarind trees on its scraggly hills shake
violently as children
come to pluck the slumbering June beetles, while termites fly out at
night at their peril to shed their wings into large vats filled with
water.
Frogs are caught on the rice paddies, as are crickets
and snails of
various shapes, all of which take pride of place as entrees on dinner
tables alongside young bamboo shoots, mushrooms and various vegetable
shoots all smothered in cane vinegar and fish paste.
"Subtlety is not found in their gastronomic
dictionary. Reflecting the
difficult conditions of the land, most of the dishes are either salty
or bitter," says the official tourist guidebook of the cuisine of
Ilocos Norte province.
"The Ilocanos' penchant for whipping up dishes
from ingredients which
others would consider inedible gives Ilocano cuisine its distinct
edge," it adds.
At the weekly livestock fair on the outskirts of Batac,
spouses
Franklin Calacal and Minda Tan serve water buffalo meat and tripe
cooked in bile, ginger and black pepper and served in a scalding soup.
The diner used to cater to farmers and other
livestock traders who
haggle over water buffalo, cattle and other draft animals beneath the
shade of spiny monkeypod trees. But locals say the 35-peso (62.5 US
cents) dish has turned it into the most popular restaurant in the
province.
Local officials, doctors, and other professionals
from across Ilocos
Norte and other nearby provinces as well as increasing numbers of
tourists from elsewhere take the long drive every Sunday to dine al
fresco on long communal tables on a dirt floor.
"They eat breakfast here, snacks, and then
lunch," eating the same
dish, Calacal tells AFP. Many of the diners are in their Sunday finery,
having just attended mass at the Batac church.
For those averse to bile stew, there is buffalo
brains and a pork dish
made of minced pig ears mixed with chopped onions and lime.
"The peak periods are Lent and the Christmas
season," says Calacal, a
former tricycle driver who gets the wood-burning stoves fired up at
dawn.
"After a week, they cannot wait to eat water
buffalo meat. They say it
is tastier and juicier than beef," says his wife.
Western-style fast food restaurants are mushrooming
across the region,
"but I still go for Ilocano food", says Jocelyn Corpuz, who helps her
mother run a 40 year-old meat pie business beside the Batac Roman
Catholic church.
She says Ilocos food is different -- the meat pie is
made from papaya
shavings, bean sprouts, and egg wrapped in tangerine-colored rice dough
then deep-fried. To non-Ilocanos, "they think all we eat are weeds",
she tells AFP.
An Ilocos-born Filipino senator once famously blew
his top when his
staff threw out the contents of his lunch box -- nalta jute herb leaves
that they mistook for garbage.
When Ilocanos butcher a pig, nothing goes to waste
with innards and
pig's blood sauteed and cooked in vinegar, crushed garlic, ground
pepper.
It's the same story for goats, a regional favorite.
The animal is
force-fed with vinegar then butchered and hauled over an open fire to
burn off the hair. Thin slices of meat and liver are then served up,
marinated in vinegar and mixed with chopped garlic and mixed with
partly digested juices from the tripe.
Tina Bayden hawks frog meat for 150 pesos (2.68
dollars) a kilogram
(2.2 pounds) on Wednesdays and Sundays in the public market of nearby
Laoag, the provincial capital.
The white meat is marinated in vinegar or lime and
deep-fried, or
seasoned with vinegar, garlic, and soy sauce like a pork dish.
She keeps a few frogs alive in a small sack, just in
case the buyers
want to prepare the dish differently. Fishermen catch the croakers from
rice paddies in nearby villages around Batac, using ordinary baited
fishing rods.
The dry season brings a new set of delicacies, including
certain types
of grasshoppers that are eaten raw in situ as farmers harvest the rice
crop.
The leaves, shoots or flowers of many vegetables, and
even trees, are
considered edible, including the crescent-shaped white flowers of the
corkwood tree.
It is also the time when giant red tree ants build
nests atop trees to
breed their young. The large white eggs of these ants, which faintly
taste sweet and sour, are among the most expensive of Ilocano
delicacies.
For the less adventurous, the less starling faces of Ilocano
cuisine
are the homemade sausages made from ground pork, pork fat, chopped
garlic, ground pepper and marinated with cane vinegar, and deep-fried
slabs of pork.
The latter is the garnish of choice for the region's
most popular dish
-- eggplant, bittergourd, gumbo, and string beans cooked in fish paste.
Wealthy Indian trader killed in Nueva Vizcaya A wealthy Indian national engaged in buy-and-sell business was shot dead while five persons were seriously hurt in two separate incidents here on Monday. Provincial Director Robert Mangaccat identified the victim as Ragvander Singh, 34, Indian national. Singh's assailant who still remains unidentified shot the victim inside a videoke bar here. Police reports showed that Singh and a certain Renato Jose were engaged in a drinking spree inside the bar when an armalite rifle wielding man wearing a bonnet fired at him. Singh was hit in his left chest. He died while undergoing treatment at the Veterans Regional Hospital here. On the other hand, Chief Superintendent Jefferson Soriano, Cagayan Valley regional police chief, said five persons were seriously wounded on Monday when two vehicles fell into a ravine along the national highway here. Two of the victims were identified as Sonny Sozimo and Caesar Franco, both residents of San Isidro They, along with the three others, whose identities have yet to be determined, are now undergoing treatment for their multiple injuries at the Magsaysay Provincial Hospital