Mogpog, Marinduque.  Today, the people of Marinduque commemorate the 13th year anniversary of the Marcopper mining disaster that inundate the Boac river with tons of toxic mine tailings, inflicting health, economic  and environmental hazards to the people. The toxic mine tailings instantly killed the river and all resident creatures and organisms living in the waters.  The tragedy is considered the most dreadful legacy of large scale mining in the country’s history.
This year’s commemoration activity draws attention to the heavily silted Mogpog river which flooded its riverine community of Barangay Bocboc only last month.  The river bed sits at same level of elevation as the community due to siltation.

In solidarity with the communities of Mogpog, the people from the municipalities of Boac, Gasan, Buenavista, and Sta. Cruz mobilised themselves to help in the sandbagging operations lead by the Marinduque Council for environmental Concerns (MACEC).  More than a thousand people participated in the activity including the Mayor Senen Livelo of Mogpog and Boac Mayor Meynardo Solomon.

The Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Kasama sa Kalikasan/Friends of the Earth Phils. (LRC-KsK/FoE Phils.) attended the event in solidarity with the people of Marinduque and was surprised to see that even the local police and military participated in the event doing the same amount of labour as  other community members, handling shovels and sacks and aligning them to make a temporary dike at the river side.  PENRO Danilo Quirejero lauded the efforts of the community and acknowledged the need to solve the main problem which is the real and continuing threat of the Maguila-guila tailings dam that until today contains millions of cubic meters of toxic tailings.

The movement of the people was overwhelming that the 2,000 available sacks were already filled with sand and arranged as a dike in less than three hours.  A meeting of leaders followed with recommendations to continue the efforts within the identified vulnerable areas in the community along the rivers of Mogpog.

His Excellency Bp. Reynaldo Evangelista provided the inspiration as he paid visit to the activity and blessed all the people who came to participate.  He made an appeal to all those concerned to continue helping the people of Mogpog and Marinduque.  He specifically requested to friends of the people of Marinduque to make donations of sacks for the succeeding sandbagging operations to cover all existing possible source of water spillage and flooding in the community.

One of the highlight of the community meeting is the recognition that ‘the people’ are the most valuable assets this province has.  The unison of the people in this activity inspired everyone and provided the great hope that someday justice will be served to them from the troubles and hardships brought about by large scale mining and Marcopper Mining Corporation.

However, the threat of the dam collapsing again is very real as it is not being maintained well by Marcopper and will definitely be more catastrophic to the communities of Mogpog.  In this regard the people of Mogpog call on the National government to give justice to the people of Mogpog and Marinduque.  The Marcopper mining disaster is also a testimony that large scale mining in island communities should not be tolerated nor given a chance to dig even using a mere shovel.

Marcopper and Placerdome left tons of hazardous wastes together with the unpaid millions of pesos of taxes due to the local government.  They left an impoverished economy and a devastated environment that the people are now trying to rehabilitate by themselves.  They find the present policy of the national government of aggressively promoting mining throughout the country a great insult, as if what happened to the island province of Marinduque was not enough.

Today, more than ever, there is the need for a strong national movement to counter the insanity that is a narrow, dangerous and a disastrous national policy of attracting extractive industries such as mining at the expense of the environment, people’s rights and welfare and national patrimony.

For more inquiries, please contact:

Ronald A. Gregorio, Team Leader, LRC-KsK/FoE Phils, +632 926 4409; +63 917 5481674

Myke Magalang, Executive Director, MACEC, +63 42 3322731