Unrestricted mining is destroying communities and the environment

 

By Fr. Shay Cullen

The latest police action against anti-mining protestors in Barangay Bitnong, Dupax del Norte, Nueva Vizcaya, last Jan. 23, 2026, has caused national concern as this is the latest protest after similar community actions in other towns such as Kasibu and Quezon against large-scale mining operations. They have been opposed by angry people protecting their forests, rivers, lands and livelihoods against the incursions of mining companies like Woggle Mining Corp. led by Tommy Alfonso as president. The general manager for operations is Lorne Harvey. Woggle is a subsidiary of the United Kingdom-based company Metals Exploration Plc, headed by Darren Bowden.

The 3,100-hectare site granted a national government exploration permit for gold and copper covers agricultural land tilled by smallholder farmers and Indigenous families. The local opposition groups describe the operations as “large-scale” and “destructive,” and point out that similar projects of open-pit mining in the region are destructive. Last October 2025, House Resolution 413 was filed in Congress calling for an investigation into Woggle’s alleged illegal exploration activities and potential permit cancellation. The protests have been supported by religious leaders and the Diocese of Bayombong. Groups like Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment have issued public statements condemning the project as a threat to “water security and cultural heritage.” Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Timothy Joseph Cayton and Mamamayang Liberal Party-list Rep. Leila de Lima have called for congressional investigations into the legality of Woggle’s exploration permit. Bishop Jose Elmer Mangalinao and various social action commissions have publicly urged the Marcos administration to cancel the project.

There has been one strong and inspiring voice in defending the planet and the environment against the extractive mining industry, and that is the enduring words of the late pope Francis. In his historical and powerful instruction to the world in “Laudato Si,” “let there be praise to God” in his 2015 encyclical, “On Care for Our Common Home,” he said that “economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given to the pursuit of financial gain, which fail to take the context into account, let alone the effects on human dignity and the natural environment.”

He said on another occasion that mining activities should benefit every person, and respect and enhance his or her inalienable fundamental human rights, and not vice versa. “We need to ensure that mining activities lead to the integral human development of each and every person, and of the entire community.” He also said Indigenous people are being deprived and driven off their ancestral homelands for the interests of mining projects which are undertaken “without regard for the degradation of nature and culture.” He said, “I urge everyone to respect fundamental human rights.”

These clear guidelines put people first before profits, but with the price of gold, copper and nickel rising continually on world markets, the wealthy Filipinos with political power are opening up the Philippines to more local and foreign investments in extractive mining.

This would be beneficial to the Filipinos if the environment, forests, rivers and streams were not destroyed, cut down or polluted in the process, and if the local communities affected were consulted, and if they approved, and were the primary beneficiaries of the mining projects. However, the profits earned go mostly to the mining companies, their investors, local politicians and to the national government.

If these massive funds earned by mining were used to benefit the people and provide better health services, social housing, fair wage employment and the reduction of poverty, they could be justified. The earnings from mining products from October 2024 to September 2025 reached approximately $7.90 billion. Of that, $4.07 billion were for metals and $3.83 billion for minerals. The question is where does it all go? Certainly not to the poor. As of November 2025, approximately 51 percent of Filipino families (estimated 14.3 million) consider themselves “poor.” An additional 12 percent of families consider themselves “borderline” poor, meaning they are on the edge of falling into poverty.

The reduction of poverty is incremental. The government estimates that absolute poverty, and the shame of the rich that causes it, will be eliminated in 14 years. The official national goal is for the Philippines to become a “predominantly middle-class society” by 2040, where “no one is poor.” This dream of no poor presumes that the economy will grow by at least 6 percent, and while it looks optimistic on paper, it is unlikely in reality, since the national wealth, such as that from mining, flows to the pockets of the rich and not the poor, as we know from the ongoing investigation in to the gigantic corruption in government where, for example, billions of pesos were stolen through a “system of plunder” of the national flood control funds.

The Department of Finance has estimated that there were “ghost” flood control projects that cost the Filipino people about $2 billion, or 60 percent of flood control funds. For over 15 years, stolen funds amounted to P1.14 trillion ($16.92 billion). The investigators discovered that kickbacks and commissions often reach as high as 25 percent, leaving only 30–40 percent of the original budget for actual construction. For sure, if anyone is found guilty, they will buy their way out of criminal charges, and the corruption will be repeated. We can hope, but hope alone cannot fill an empty stomach.

So, when it comes to mining, the gigantic funds generated over the years in the sale of gold, copper, nickel and other minerals will likely be stolen or only benefit the rich, and leave communities with nothing but destroyed lands, rivers, forests and fields. So, let us not fool ourselves into believing that extractive open-pit mining is for the benefit of the Filipino people, it is not, and never will be if history is a lesson.