MANILA, Philippines – Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), an advocacy group and people’s movement composed of more than eighty (80) organizations from mining-affected communities and civil society organizations nationwide, feared the appointment of longtime Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) director Horacio Ramos as the new Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) secretary that will put indigenous groups at higher risk to injustices.

The outgoing administration is brazenly relentless in perpetuating the destruction it has wrought our communities and ecosystems. With just four months to go, President Arroyo has placed Horacio Ramos, the country’s long running top mining bureaucrat, at the helm of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

KORONADAL CITY—Last February 1, the school building of Datal Biao Elementary School in Barangay Danlag, Tampakan, South Cotabato was burned by still unidentified men. The military blames the New People's Army (NPA) of the mine site atrocity. Datal Biao lies within the Mine Development Area of Xtrata–SMI.