Bishop welcomes mining companies’ departure

A CATHOLIC bishop welcomed the reported plan of at least seven foreign mining companies to cease operations and leave the southern Philippines due to threats by communist rebels.

“I am very happy that they will withdraw because they are going to destroy our mountains…. Now we are OK. We’re very happy with the progress of our advocacies,” said Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez.

The army reported early this week that at least seven mining companies in the Caraga region in Mindanao aired complaints against alleged extortion by communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.

“Seven mining companies are the targets. They have expressed their apprehension to Maj. Gen. (Victor) Felix that they cannot meet the so-called quota demanded by the NPA,” said Major Eugenio Julio Osias, chief of the Philippine army’s 4th Civil Military Operations Battalion.

Osias said that from about 15 million pesos (US$340,000) a month this year, the NPA raised the “revolutionary tax” to as high as 25 million pesos a month starting next year. “There are seven big companies complaining but we cannot name them. (The mining companies) threatened to leave the area,” the military official said.

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