Priest´s hunger strike claims initial victory

Published Date: December 9, 2009

The government has suspended permission for a mining company to operate in Mindoro Oriental province after a priest and indigenous people there staged a hunger strike.

For Father Edwin Gariguez, however, the fight is far from over.

Father Edwin Gariguez signs a manifesto by hunger strikers

The priest, who works in Calapan vicariate´s mission to indigenous Mangyan people, is a member of Alliance against Mining (ALAMIN). He says the group is “contemplating legal action to enforce moratoriums on Mindoro Island.”

Mindoro Oriental province passed an ordinance in 2002 banning large-scale mining for 25 years. Five municipal governments in Mindoro Occidental, the other province on the island, also have passed mining moratoriums.

Through the recent hunger strike, the priest and other ALAMIN members, including Mangyan people, opposed nickel mining operations by the Norwegian Intex corporation. Intex plans to extract 100-120 million tons of nickel ore over 15-20 years in the two Mindoro provinces, beginning in 2011.

ALAMIN claims the environmental clearance certificate (ECC) that Joselito Atienza Jr., secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Environment, gave to the company is illegal. It says the certificate was issued despite the opposition of provincial and local governments, and residents in affected communities.

The group also cites anticipated damage to watersheds, farms and forests.

“Mining moratoriums should be imposed not only on Mindoro Island, but in other places of the Philippines to stop destruction and pollution of nature,” Father Gariguez said.

He and Father Ruben Villanueva Jr., vicar general of San Jose vicariate in Mindoro Occidental, were among the 24 people who began their hunger strike outside the environment department´s national office, near Manila, on Nov. 17.

Catholic priests bless people who started a hunger
strike Nov. 17 outside the Department of Environment
and Natural Resources national headquarters

They took only water. On Nov. 26, Atienza suspended the ECC pending an independent investigation.

Father Gariguez, appearing thinner just after returning to Mindoro from the strike, said a letter that Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Manila published in a national newspaper was “crucial” to the strikers´ “victory.”

Bishop Pabillo, head of the Philippine bishops´ National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace, had urged Atienza to “have the courage to revoke” the ECC.

The bishop and a number of Divine Word and other priests had visited the strikers in their tents to celebrate Mass with them.

The Church, together with ALAMIN, is also seeking to repeal the Mining Act of 1995, which allows foreign investors to conduct large-scale mining operations in the country.

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