OceanaGold is under “care and maintenance”. What does this mean? Asked Manong Peter Duyapat, chairperson of Didipio Earth Savers Multi?Purpose Association or DESAMA as he heard the news from supporters while attending a conference in Manila. “The Didipio community will rejoice if that news of OceanaGold means that they are withdrawing from their mining operation in our village. We’ll have a ‘kanyaw’ (Ifugao celebration) when I get back to our community in Didipio. This is indeed is a welcome news for all of us indigenous peoples in Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino”.

It is not surprising that Oceanagold’s economic problem does not elicit sympathy from the community that has suffered from the mining company’s bad business practice here in the Philippines. OceanaGold’s operations in this year alone displaced more than a hundred indigenous families as a result of their illegal and violent demolition activities in the first quarter. It currently faces several complaints lodged before the Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights for these acts.

For the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, this news also means that OceanaGold has lost its legal eligibility to continue the Didipio Gold Copper Project and should withdraw from the agreement, and the government must take the necessary steps to safeguard the indigenous peoples, communities, and natural resources of Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino provinces.

The Mining Act of 1995 requires that FTAA holders have the financial, technical and managerial abilities to carry out mineral exploration and utilisation on a large scale. The Didipio Gold Copper Project has been tainted by massive human rights violations, and showed that OceanaGold entered into the agreement hinged on mere financial speculation.

Their own admission that their current financial situation is not conducive to pursue operations shows that it lacks the financial capacity to genuinely carry out the FTAA project.

The global financial crisis is a given, but OceanaGold’s financial and management problems started long before the September 08 crash. Its impending downfall stems from its inability to operate a legitimate mining project even under normal economic conditions, a reality that has long been argued by the indigenous peoples’ of Nueva Viscaya and Quirino.

For more information, contact: Ronald A. Gregorio, (02) 926 4409, (02) 434 4079