Asia Times: Mindanao's deadly practices under attack


	November 29, 2001	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Mindanao's deadly practices under attack

DAVAO CITY, Philippines - Severe pollution caused by mining in Mindanao is causing illness and even death, and grave health problems and environmental ruin in the region will get even worse unless there is immediate action, the national government has been warned.

Calling for a Mindanao Environmental Health Action Plan (MEHAP), Dr Nelia Cortes-Maramba, a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine, said that an integrated multidisciplinary approach in gold-mining operations, pesticide use and energy generation is urgently needed.

Department of Health (DOH) Under-secretary Milagros Fernandez also pushed the urgency of the MEHAP, explaining that development could only be pursued and sustained if the full range of potential impacts of industrial activities on people and the environment were appraised and anticipated. Maramba and Fernandez were two of the speakers during the recently concluded First Mindanao Summit for Environmental and Occupational Health held in Davao City.

Maramba said Mindanao's gold-mining operators who use the mercury amalgamation process have, wittingly or unwittingly, contributed to environmental destruction. Worse, they have also endangered the health of mercury handlers and the mining community members, including the offspring of exposed mothers.

She noted research findings in the past five years showing that mercury inhalation and methyl-mercury ingestion have sent many miners and people living near mining camps to either their sick or death beds. Mercury has seeped into and contaminated food and water resources in at least 20 provinces in the Philippines where mercury is being used in gold extraction by amalgamation, she said.

In Mindanao alone, it was estimated that some 26 tons of mercury were dumped yearly into bodies of water that drained toward Agusan River to Butuan Bay in the north and to the Davao Gulf in the south, she added. Findings in 1997 showed that the mercury levels of river water samples taken in Nabok, Pantukan, Hijo and Kiriking - all in Davao Norte - exceeded national and international standards.

Drinking-water samples from Sitio Gumayan in Pantukan also exceeded World Health Organization standards based on findings in l999. Tuna and other fish samples from Davao del Norte showed high methyl-mercury levels. Gold miners examined in Pantukan were found to have high blood mercury levels resulting in poor memory, abnormal gait and loss of balance.

Fernandez said that the exploration and exploitation of the country's natural resources might have reaped economic opportunities, but wanton mining and utter disregard of environmental and health protection aspects have adversely reduced expected social and economic benefits.

She said a range of health problems has been associated with industrial processes in developing countries, resulting in sick populations with lower economic outputs and less food. Poorer nutrition, in turn, has raised susceptibility to diseases, she said. Factors involving occupational and environmental diseases have been deliberately under-reported to avoid interruptions on projects and industrial activities, she added.

The presence of health risks and work hazards and the use of child labor were common operational misdeeds in small industries that avoid regulation or inspection. This meant that workers in small industries had greater risks of suffering from toxic effects or fully developed occupational diseases than their counterparts in large industries. Fernandez said many job hazards were compounded by exposure to various industrial chemicals.

(Asia Pulse/PNA)