Despite the harm to the residents’ health and livelihood, they did not get any compensation.

By Aaron Ernest Cruz
Bulatlat.com

MANILA – As nickel mining persists in the Caraga region, communities continuously suffer from environmental degradation and human rights violations. 

Nickel is used for creating lithium-ion batteries used for technologies that need batteries to function, including electric vehicles. The Philippines is the world’s second largest producer of nickel after Indonesia. Despite its demand, Filipinos near mining sites do not benefit from it.

Krista Shennum, Climate Rights International (CRI) researcher, released a report focusing on the direct impact of the communities from Caraga region particularly on Dinagat Islands and Surigao Del Sur where 23 nickel mining sites are active.  

“These minerals [especially nickel] are needed for the energy transition and for their purposes, but in no way is it acceptable to cause severe human rights violations,” Shennum told Bulatlat.

CRI and Empower, an independent corporate research and accountability firm, also conducted research on where the nickel ore went.

They found out that 90 percent of mined nickel ore went to China. Meanwhile, there are 4,000 percent of increase that went to Indonesia from 2023 to 2024 due to nickel shortage. 

With the recent typhoon Tino that landed on Western Visayas and Northern Mindanao (including Caraga region), nickel mining made the community more vulnerable to climate impacts including extreme weather events. Even the mangroves that serve as protection to minimize the flood in coastal areas have been cut due to mining activities.

Damaged livelihood

Farming and fishing are the basic livelihood of the communities at Dumagat Islands and Surigao del Sur. They complained about the decrease of quantity and quality of the crops they harvest and fishes caught.

Frequent flooding also made it worse for them and they now have no choice but to eat only once a day. This situation threatens the residents’ rights to food security as well as to their livelihood.

Sonia Delort, 54, fisherfolk at Dinagat Islands, told CRI how the mud and silt pollution caused by nickel mining makes their fishing more difficult. “We used to catch about 20 kilograms of fish per day and wouldn’t have to go far. Now, mining pollutes the ocean. It’s more dangerous to fish because we have to go out farther to sea, around three or four hours. My husband will leave at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. and come home around 5:00 p.m. Sometimes he doesn’t catch enough fish to cover the fuel costs, which can be P70 to P85 ($1.19 to $1.45).”

Delort and her husband also catch crabs, tiger prawns and lobster as an additional income but the quality and quantity of these marine species also decreased and were covered with orange mud.

Shennum also shared how the accessibility of potable water has also been affected as their watersheds are undergoing mining activity. From mountains down to their community, their drinking water became orange or brown due to sedimentation and pollution in mining areas.

“They don’t have the money to pay for other expensive distilled water. In some cases, what people told us they would do is they would bottle the water and just wait a few days for the silt to settle out,” Shennum said.

The poor quality of food and water affected the residents’ health, particularly their respiratory system. There are accounts that residents near mining sites are suffering from asthma, skin ailments, and tuberculosis.

Little to no compensation

Despite the harm to the residents’ health and livelihood, they did not get any compensation. Mining companies promised job opportunities and development in areas but they paid their miners less than the minimum wage. 

“The title of the report, Broken Promises, is a quote from a lot of the people we interviewed who thought when mining came, they were going to have good jobs, they were going to have good development. And people really just don’t feel like that’s happened. Their lives are worse now than they were before. Even basic things around better access to schools and to health care systems are not happening at the local level,” Shennum said.

Although CRI has sent a list of recommendations to the national government and its agencies handling concerns of protecting their constituents from environmental conflict, they have yet to respond.

Shennum said that some of her resource persons in conducting this research are scared of the retaliation that the mining companies might do, knowing that they are big corporations with abundant resources.  

Jaybee Garganera, national coordinator of Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), also shared the same sentiment of Shennum and said that in years of experience dealing with environmental issues, they always said that they are “tired, hungry, and scared.” Living in a basic livelihood with a small income, they face food insecurity due to mining. And when they rise to defend their rights, they are being subjected to threat and intimidation.”

According to Global Witness, a non-government organization that serves to protect environment-related conflict, the Philippines is the deadliest country to defend the environment across Asia. From 2012 to 2023, the Philippines accounted for 298 cases of environmental defenders killed out of 468 in Asia.

Aside from mining operations and its downstream supply, Garganera also criticized politicians who have ties with mining companies. “That is why you have mining companies who blatantly disregard environmental law, the indigenous people’s right, and even local autonomy because they know they have ‘padrinos’ who are senators and a former speaker of the house whose family traces a long history of ownership of mining corporations.”

Garganera said that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) failed in its mandate to protect the environment and the community. “These broken promises will continue because of the lack of transparency and accountability of mining companies who have direct connections with politicians.” (AMU, DAA)