LRC-KsK/FoE-Philippines Press Release

July 15, 2010

“The South Cotabato Environment Code is one of the few brilliant pieces of legislation that came out of the dark period of the Arroyo administration.  President Aquino would do well in his vow to correct injustices of past administrations by respecting and protecting the Code. There should absolutely be no compromise on environmental and people’s rights.” This is the response of Judith Pamela Pasimio, Executive Director of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC-KsK/FOE-Philippines) to the news that P-Noy would strive to work out a compromise among concerned parties on the South Cotabato provincial ordinance.

In a statement from LRC, Pasimio said that “We will hold him to his words that at the end of the day it will be the local community whose voice will be loudest as far as he is concerned, and that there is respect of the freedoms and the initiatives of the local government unit (LGU).”

Pasimio’s organization, LRC, had been advocating for the scrapping of the Mining Act of 1995 and is pushing for the passage of a new law for the rational management and governance of our mineral resources.  “Present Investments in mining mean destroying our environment and communities in order for corporations to access, control and utilize our mineral resources for production of commodities that would make profits in the global market, and in the process we get a few loose change from mining companies in return. This is the rapacious mentality that well characterized the previous administration that President Aquino should work to eradicate.” Pasimio said, adding “If there should be a compromise in order to benefit from investments, then this should be on redirecting the investments flow in South Cotabato towards agricultural development for food security, building up small and medium scale enterprises, promotion of eco-tourism, strengthening of ancestral domains, developing manufacturing capability for products needed by the people, and investing in building the capability of communities to maximize their resources towards sustainable development.”

The statement urged the present governor and legislative council of South Cotabato to uphold and build upon the Environment Code that they inherited from the work of the previous council and through the courage of former Governor Daisy Fuentes to sign the code in spite of pressures of those with mining interests to block the code.

Pasimio called on all South Cotabato residents, indigenous peoples communities, environmental advocates, human rights activists, development workers and church people “ for us to defend the Environment Code and work together to advocate national, regional and local sustainable development and investment plans as an alternative to the mining and extractives obsessed development framework of the past administrations.”

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