No to Kamag-Anak Inc.'s destructive industries and its continuing plunder
of our natural resources in South Central Mindanao!*
Ka Efren
NDF-Far South Mindanao
April 24, 2011
Within just ten months of Benigno Aquino III's rise to power, Kamag-Anak Inc has moved in to wrest control of the vast resources in south central Mindanao -- from large scale mining to power generation to agribusiness. Eduardo Cojuangco, through San Miguel Corporation (SMC) now has a 10% equity in Xstrata-SMI which will be the country's biggest and most destructive copper gold mine. He also acquired three coal mines in coal rich Daguma range spanning Sarangani, Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato. SMC announced it will soon build coal fired power plants in General Santos, Sultan Kudarat and Davao.
Overweening with wealth and power, Cojuangco and his nephew, P-noy seem totally immune to the people's urgent and widespread clamor to stop this wanton plunder of our mineral resources and the imminent threat of environmental disasters like landslides, air and water pollution and the destruction of our river systems and coastal areas.
In Far South Mindanao, the large-scale mining of Xstrata SMI of which Cojuangco is a part owner poses the biggest threat to the environment. No less than the provincial government of South Cotabato in its environmental Code and the Diocese of Marbel have continuously expressed their vehement opposition to the large scale open pit mining of this multinational company. But the Aquino regime and its Kamag-anak Inc are deaf to the dire warnings of ecologists, scientists and concerned citizens -- all for the sake of revenues and profit.
Using the most lethal coercive instrument of the state, all opposition to large scale mining, coal fired power plants and agribusiness plantations are being silenced by the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Its newest strategy is Oplan Bayanihan whose rhetoric of "peace and development" are used as cover for an extremely fascist militarization of those areas targeted for mining and plantations.
Under the name of Oplan Bayanihan's 'counterinsurgency' program, thousands of lumad and settler communities in FSMR are being eased out of their homes and farms to give way to imperialist mines and plantations. Moro communities along Liguasan Marsh also face the threat of eviction, once the US oil companies start siphoning the natural gas and other minerals from this area.
Fully aware of these realities, the revolutionary forces of the National Democratic Front are committed to continue fighting for the people's welfare and the protection of the environment. We will not allow these foreign monopoly capitalists and their local partners, the comprador big bourgeoisie to continue their wanton plunder of our natural resources at the expense of our environment. We will fight them to the end or until national democracy is achieved -- when we would have chartered a rational, pro-people, eco-friendly economic policy.
