I remember proposing once at a conference of NGOs in the Philippines that mining companies provide funding for measures to allow the monitoring of mining activities potentially harmful to the community or the environment. The proposal was not at all popular. Mining, during that particular form, was seen at the very least “the work of the devil himself”. Shortly after that eye-opener, I became involved in an inter (foreign]) government oversight group tracking foreign mining investment in the Philippines. Our goal was to ensure that foreign investor miners carried out their activities in a transparent and socially responsible way. Sometime after this, the fledgling Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) paid a visit i ntending to ask the Philippines to join their organisation, which it did.