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MANILA Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo has accepted a
proposed dialogue by a mining company on the issue of hotly contested Tampakan
Mining Project in South Cotabato—on one condition—it should be open to the public
and the media.
Pabillo said he is agreeable to the proposal as long
as it is transparently done.
Saggitarius
Mines Inc. (SMI), the local mining company that operates the Tampakan project
in Southern Mindanao, has invited Pabillo to a dialogue in a letter sent on
July 31.
“I
would like to accept your invitation with the condition that it will be done in
a PUBLIC SPACE and that it will be OPEN to the PUBLIC and the MEDIA”, Pabillo,
who also chairs the CBCP’s National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and
Peace, said in response.
SMI
requested Pabillo, who is also the bishop convenor of the Philippine Misereor
Partnership Inc. – National Capital Region (PMPI-NCR) Urban Cluster, to engage in
a dialogue with them with regards to their mining plans in Southern Mindanao.
It
may be recalled that Pabillo has spearheaded an online signature campaign urging
President Benigno Aquino III to cancel the mining permits of SMI.
But
the mining company contended the arguments raised by Pabillo in his online
petition which was started a few weeks ago to cancel the operation of
supposedly the largest copper and gold mining project in Tampakan, South
Cotabato.
The
online campaign, which already drew in close to 10,000 individuals, was in
support of the signature campaign initially launched by three Mindanao dioceses
in 2011, led by Kidapawan Bishop Romulo dela Cruz, Marbel (Koronadal) Bishop
Dinualdo Gutierrez, and Digos Bishop Guillermo Afable, to oppose the said
mining project.
The
SMI Tampakan project includes the towns of Tampakan in South Cotabato which is
under the Diocese of Marbel, Kiblawan in Davao del Sur which is within the
jurisdiction of Digos Diocese, and Columbio in Sultan Kudarat which is within
the area of Kidapawan Diocese.
As
of present, this campaign initiative of three dioceses already solicited more
than 270,000 signatures and it was submitted to the Office of the President in
Malacañang.
Anti-mining
advocates, led by the Catholic Church fiercely oppose the Tampakan project because
of the magnitude of its negative impact on the environment and people`s livelihood
if it becomes operational.
