Tender loving scare

Now the tables are turned, and Chief Justice Renato Corona is reportedly willing to face trial before the Senate and the complaints against him filed by congressmen.

But what were those complaints? From what I gathered, our leader Benigno Simeon (aka BS) explained them in detail during the administration coalition caucus held Tuesday.

It seems that, at the onset, mainly because it was the campaign line

of BS, the Aquino (Part II) administration was moving to have former President Gloria Arroyo face accusations of corruption during the administration of Gloriaetta.

And so the Palace wanted to create a “truth commission,” which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional. In the meantime, all cases filed by the current administration against Mrs. Arroyo were also not moving in the Office of the Ombudsman. The boys of BS thus started the impeachment process against former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, which the Supreme Court subsequently blocked.

Of course we still look back fondly to the temporary restraining order (TRO) that the Supreme Court recently issued to allow Mrs. Arroyo to leave the country for “medical” reasons.

During the caucus, BS emphasized the point that in issuing the TRO for “medical” reasons, the Supreme Court did not even bother to hear the testimony of the doctors of Mrs. Arroyo who, as it turned out, actually believed that Mrs. Arroyo did not have to stay in the hospital, much less seek treatment abroad.

In other words, BS was convincing his allies in the House that, thanks to Corona, the Supreme Court was only helping Mrs. Arroyo run away from the cases that the Aquino (Part II) administration was building against her.

And such things most likely will happen again and again, BS supposedly said to his political allies in the House.

From what I gathered, the impeachment complaint against the Chief Justice also alleged that he had a relatively newly acquired property in an upscale area in Makati.

These are the exact words of BS: “We are now going through a process to put to a halt a single magistrate’s continued discrediting of the sacred institution that is the Supreme Court: an institution that the people count on to be a place where fairness and blind justice reign.”

Unlike former Ombudsman Gutierrez, anyway, the Chief Justice reportedly wants to slug it out with the executive branch before the Senate. It will be messy for everybody and for the guys down here in my barangay, there is just no escaping it.

* * *

The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines, or the CMP, seems ready to fight back in the lopsided publicity war that some “anti-mining” groups have been waging against the few “large-scale” mining companies in the country.

While most of those groups have been flogging large-scale mining companies in media, they have been pushing for legislation—quite secretly—to overhaul our mining laws in favor of so-called “small scale” mining.

In other words, most of the anti-mining groups are not against mining. They just do not want big corporations to take part in the industry. Basta, no big boys in this sector, period.

Last month, during the Annual National Mine Safety and Environment Conference held in Baguio City, CMP officials labeled those groups’ media attacks as “misinformation.”

Down here in my barangay, the guys know “misinformation” simply as “lies.”

According to news reports, CMP chair Artemio Disini, for instance, pinpointed one particular “lie” that the anti-groups have been peddling all this time: that large companies would be exploiting some 12 million hectares in the country.

The figure has been pitched about so often in media reports that, from what I gathered, even top government officials—a couple of them in the Cabinet—already adopted it as “official” estimate.

Certain Cabinet members, from what I heard, have also accepted the claim that the mining big boys would mine some 80 percent of the entire Palawan.

Let us do the math with the total area of the Philippines at a little less than 30 million ha, those 12 million ha (as claimed by the anti-groups) should cover roughly 40 percent of our total land mass. Wow!

That figure is even bigger than the whole of Luzon which, with some 10 million ha, is considered the world’s largest island.

The CMP has for its members some 30 companies, meaning, there are only 30 of those hated vilified large-scale mines in the country today. Figures from the CMP show that the 30 companies cover a land footprint of less than 10,000 ha. These are not even 0.03 percent of the total land area of our country.

Nobody knows just how the anti-groups came up with the 12-million ha figure, and yet they claim that large-scale mining would damage the ecosystems of the entire country beyond repair.

It is the doomsday scenario, something that was meant to scare us, disguised as facts by some anti-mining groups, which loved the environment, a tactic now shared by religious groups and even top government officials in the Cabinet.

In various forums, the CMP has presented papers after papers showing the heavy regulations imposed by the government on the large-scale mining sector.

The question of course is this: Are they following the rules? So far, the government is still allowing them to operate.

Of course any human activity has its effect on the environment. You ride a bus, and you contribute to global warming. Still, you cannot avoid riding the bus.

In the same way, this country needs the mining industry. For instance, looked from another way, those 10,000 ha covered by large-scale miners today are only about one-third of the entire area of Quezon City. Yet the industry brings about economic benefits, perhaps even more than many other business sectors, including media.

According to CMP figures, for instance, those 30 large-scale mines contributed about P4 billion in taxes in 2009 alone. Last year, total investments in large-scale mining amounted to $1 billion, and a good part of it was poured into projects that were not yet even operating. The industry provides some 340,000 jobs which, using a multiplier effect of 4 times, can easily translate to more than one million jobs in other support services.

Those facts hardly scare me.