Three mountains once loomed on the other side of a cove on the border of Surigao del Sur and Surigao del Norte provinces in the southern Philippines. Now, only one remains.
“I am jarred by how fast the mountains disappear,” said Velvet, a researcher for anti-mining alliance Caraga Watch who travels around the southern Mindanao region several times a year.
“One year there, the next year, gone. They ship earth to be processed in other countries,” she said.
Ang mining, talo yan kung ibebenta mo lang ang minina mo. There is no profit in it. Why? Because the cost of mining is not only exploration, digging and whatever other costs that comes with extraction. The real cost of mining includes the cost of the side-effects of mining and there is no way that the price of whatever was mined and exported will cover the cost of side-effects.
The only way mining can be profitable is by turning whatever is extracted from the ground into finished goods. The added-value would at the very least cover the cost of the side-effects. Once those side effects are covered then we can start talking about profits from the sale of finished goods. Short of that mining is a fucking waste of time and resources.