By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
For now, the Altai Philippine Mining Corp. (APMC) has ceased its operations to extract nickel ore from Sibuyan Island in the town of San Fernando, Romblon. The human barricade did well in drawing media attention to the serious concerns of island residents and environmentalists.
This halt, though, is not the result of legal action or government sanctioning, so it is non-binding. Altai has only agreed to stop its mining activities until after sorting out three violations pointed out by authorities.
From the APMC’s standpoint, this is just a hiccup in its 25-year operation plan to mine the area. Even if protesters were correct in claiming that it had been operating illegally, there seems to be no resolve on the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to shut the mining firm down.
If Altai eventually gets its way, what’s bothersome is that the government shall have demonstrated how poorly it upholds laws to protect the environment and the community living in resource-rich areas.
Obviously, we haven’t learned enough from the Marcopper disaster to demand more than just minimum compliance from today’s mining firms.
Back to bullying
China is back to its bullying tactics in the West Philippine Sea. This time it is using two of its coast guard ships and two other maritime militia vessels to test the patience of our very own navy ship BRP Andres Bonifacio (PS-17) near Panganiban Reef.
What happens at sea directly represents President Xi Jinping’s two-faced diplomacy toward the Philippines.
Too many, too often, too blatant, too antagonistic, and too oppressive have been the encroachments made by Chinese vessels in the WPS that our fishermen have lost their livelihood and our sovereign rights over our maritime borders trampled on.
So, here we are now, forced to look at the option of holding joint coast guard patrols with our defense ally, the United States. Maybe, China doesn’t want that to happen; but they sure were asking for it.
‘Doctored’ by doctors?
The country’s leading forensic pathologist, Dr. Raquel Fortun, must be sick to her stomach that her recent review has exposed how doctors certified as “natural causes” the deaths of drug war victims who agents of the law had gunned down.
Fortun said she was “being nice” in saying that 12 cases were “mis-certifications” by doctors who declared pneumonia, hypertension, infarction, and sepsis as the causes of death.
It’s about time the National Bureau of Investigation stepped in, not just to prosecute the killers but to build criminal cases against the doctors and see them jailed for hiding these heinous crimes.
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