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By Karol Anne M. Ilagan, Philippine Center
For Investigative Journalism
First of two parts
BOAC, MOGPOG AND STA. CRUZ, Marinduque: A neat
tapestry of Spanish-style houses, old churches, beaches and rows of
coconut trees that never seem to end characterizes this island
province southeast of Manila.
The key word here is “neat.” Along the main
road that connects all six towns on the island, huts big and small
are all tidied up, each yard spic and span. “It’s not an order
or anything, it’s just how things are here,” one resident said.
“Bakuran mo, linis mo. Ganoon kasimple [Your yard, you clean it
up. It’s that simple].”
If only cleaning up after mining operations gone
terribly wrong were that simple.
In the midst of a global economic slowdown, the
Philippine government has turned to reviving the mining industry to
help bring in much-needed revenues. But environmentalists have been
up in arms not only over the resurgence of what they have described
as a very destructive business. Many of them also said that at the
very least, national authorities should first help the likes of
Marinduque recover from previous mining disasters before opening up
other areas for new ventures.
Indeed, 12 years after suffering from what is
still by far the country’s most serious mining catastrophe,
Marinduque has yet to be rid of millions of tons of mine wastes that
have choked Boac River. Millions of tons more lie in Mogpog River
and Calancan Bay, and there are signs that even more will pour into
these waters if some of the abandoned mine’s structures are not
repaired soon.
It may be impossible for Marinduque to be rid of
most of the toxic mine wastes that has become the legacy of
Marcopper Mining Corp. in the island. Yet even a promise to
rehabilitate Boac River has all been abandoned by Placer Dome, the
Canadian mining giant that had a 40-percent share in Marcopper,
which extracted copper concentrates, as well as gold and silver ore
from Marinduque’s Mount Tapian.
Today locals who used to fish for a living in
the now-polluted Boac and Mogpog rivers and Calancan Bay have yet to
find alternative means of livelihood. Worse, medical professionals
have observed an increase in chronic illnesses in people living near
the waste sites, leading them to suspect that the toxic mining trash
has been silently wreaking havoc on the residents’ health.
Provincial health officer Dr. Honesto Marquez,
for one, said he has noticed a rise in the number of cases of
diabetes, goiter, renal disease, spontaneous abortion, and even
cancer—particularly in the towns of Santa Cruz, Mogpog and Boac.
At least three young Santa Cruz residents, with ages ranging from
eight to 19, have also died because of illnesses believed to be
related to heavy-metal poisoning.
Smothered waters
Between 1975 and 1991, Marcopper dumped about
200 million tons of mine waste in Calancan Bay in Santa Cruz. In
1993, the company’s Maguila-guila dam collapsed, filling Mogpog
River with silt, essentially killing it. Three years later, Boac had
its unfortunate turn to have its river system smothered with three
million tons of mine tailings.
The 1996 mining accident in Boac is considered
to be the worst in the country’s history.
But health officials said it is Santa Cruz that
is the most worrisome in terms of the kind and sheer number of
illnesses being recorded there.
So much mine waste was dumped into Calancan Bay
that a seven-kilometer long and half-kilometer wide land mass was
formed there. Called the Calancan causeway by some, it is more
commonly known among locals simply as “tambak” or pile.
“People living near Calancan Bay, they have
been feeling it, it’s just that there was no massive spill unlike
Boac,” said University of the Philippines National Poison
Management and Control Center (UP-NPMCC) chief Dr. Lynn Crisanta
Panganiban. “It was a slow contamination and low-level exposure .
. . through time.”
Before it divested itself of its shares in
Marcopper in 1997, Placer Dome spent some $70 million in putting a
new plug in Tapian Pit drainage tunnel, building levees on the Boac
riverbank and dredging a channel at the mouth of the river. The
amount also covered the construction of new homes, roads and
airlifting of food and other supplies to the devastated area. In
addition, Placer Dome paid more than $1 million as compensation to
Boac fisher folk and laundrywomen who could no longer use the river
to earn their living.
Placer Dome committed itself to rehabilitating
Boac River. But it never admitted responsibility for the
contamination of Calancan Bay and the Mogpog River spill. The
company also maintained that there were no conclusive studies
linking the mine wastes to the diseases plaguing the residents of
the affected areas.
Meanwhile, Barrick Gold Corp., which bought
Placer Dome in 2006, said it is not responsible for the problems the
latter left behind in the Philippines.
Unexplained
rise in illnesses
In January 2005, a team from the United States
Geological Survey (USGS) submitted to the Marinduque provincial
government a commissioned report assessing the environmental and
health impact of mining on the island. But the team itself admitted
in failing to make a significant scrutiny of the effects of mining
on the health of the people, citing unavailable data, confounding
variables, and lack of control groups.
“The USGS report was of no use,” said Mogpog
municipal health officer Dr. Edzel Muhi. “They say that the
chemicals found in the children are possibly from the paint in
houses and the school, but the most families here live only in
huts.”
As early as March 1998, too, then-President
Fidel Ramos had declared a state of calamity in four Santa Cruz
villages near Calancan Bay—Botilao, Ipil, Lusok and
Camandugan—because of the high incidence of heavy-metal poisoning
among the children there.
Today the latest official data show that in
these same villages, the prevalence rates of illnesses considered to
be symptoms of heavy-metal poisoning far outpace national figures.
In fact, the four villages have influenza and hypertension
prevalence rates that are some eight times that at national
level—4,283.96 per 100,000 population for influenza and 4,079.96
for hypertension, compared to the national prevalence rates of 435
and 522.8, respectively.
The villages also post a high prevalence rate of
acute respiratory infection (ARI) and upper respiratory tract
infection (URTI) or cough, cold and fever: 6,813.54 per 100,000
population, or three times more the provincial prevalence rate of
2,104.36. Health officials note as well that the villages’ annual
cases of acute respiratory infection and upper respiratory tract
infection increased last year to 334, from the average of 258 in the
previous five years.
And while the Department of Health data do not
include allergic dermatitis as one of top causes of diseases in the
country, it is very common in the four communities, ranking fifth at
a rate of 1,631.98 per 100,000 people.
Dr. Marquez admitted that the lack of a medical
laboratory in Marinduque has prevented them from identifying
precisely whether these diseases are caused primarily or secondarily
by heavy metals. “There are plenty of illnesses toxic metals and
chemicals can cause,” he said. “We can’t just pinpoint this
out, because tests must be done, and we don’t have the technical
capability to do so. But the question is, in the exposed areas, why
are these diseases on the rise?”
Panganiban also said, “It’s a natural course
for people to get sick. What alarmed the health officials there is
that the rates are above the regular prevalence rate.”
Toxic metals and chemicals
According to the National Poison Management and
Control Center, lead, arsenic, cadmium and zinc are among the toxic
substances left behind by Marcopper in Boac and Mogpog rivers and
Calancan Bay.
“Metals affect every vital organ you can think
of,” said Panganiban, a toxicologist. “It could be hematologic.
It could affect the nervous, endocrine, renal and even the
reproductive system.”
Signs and symptoms of heavy-metal poisoning may
range from minor diseases—such as skin rashes, diarrhea and
constipation—to more serious illnesses, like hypertension, blood
and pulmonary disorders and even cancer, mental retardation, or
developmental delay.
“The physical properties of chemicals alone
may affect the residents,” Panganiban said. “Chemicals could get
to the body through inhalation, ingestion by eating contaminated
seafood, and constant contact.”
Not that Santa Cruz residents are able to get
much catch from the bay these days, since mine waste had destroyed
some 80 square kilometers of coral reef and sea grass.
Melissa Mendoza, 50, of Barangay Ipil said:
“Fish catch has really dwindled. Before we used to catch buckets.
Now, we can’t even catch two kilos overnight.”
Wilson Manuba, for his part, said he ignored the
cuts made by shellfish on his feet and legs whenever he fished at
Calancan Bay. But then he began feeling like his feet were being
“pricked by needles” every time he fished in the bay. In 2002,
he was diagnosed as having contracted arsenic keratosis and squamous
cell carcinoma that necessitated the amputation of his right leg.
Now 37, Manuba is about to lose his other leg.
“I have accepted my condition,” he said.
“I just worry for my children.” His eldest son Brian, 12,
already has asthma, just like many of the children in their village.
In Mogpog town, some 25 kilometers from Santa
Cruz, residents can only look wistfully at the river that used to
help feed them and keep them clean. Adelina Mitante, 63, said,
“The river has totally changed. Just by the color, sometimes
it’s blue, yellowish or like rust.”
Her neighbor, Milagros Muhi, 57, also observed
that carabaos that drink regularly from the river “become thin.”
She added, “Even our [harvest of] bananas and coffee are
affected.”
Mogpog’s Dr. Muhi said he has also evaluated
many cases of skin lesions and neurologic complaints from locals
living near the river. He explained that an aggravating factor is
that residents can’t help but cross the Mogpog River despite it
being contaminated.
“Don’t just go down by that river, because
it’s harmful to your feet,” said Mitante, one of many in her
village with skin lesions on the feet and legs.
Doctors said that even if preventive measures
are taken, such as applying cream or taking vitamins to block the
absorption of metals in the body, symptoms of heavy-metal poisoning
will keep on showing up so long as the toxic source exists.
Shortage in
health-care resources
Local health officials also said that while they
had recommended an intensive health and environment surveillance in
Boac, Mogpog, and Santa Cruz early on, the work needed was
apparently beyond the technical and financial capabilities of the
Department of Health.
Muhi, for instance, is the only doctor in
Mogpog, which has 31,000 people. According to the latest Health
department data, Marinduque, which has a population of more than
219,000, has only seven doctors and 12 nurses.
The last time the Health department, along with
the UP Philippine General Hospital, held a health assessment of
Marinduque residents was in 2002. That assessment showed that
children in the exposed areas of Santa Cruz and Boac had histories
of convulsions, while those from unexposed Torrijos and Buenavista
towns had none. Physical examination also revealed that the affected
communities had more undernourished children than the unaffected
ones. Laboratory examination conducted among exposed children
detected as well blood disorders, such as anemia, leucocytosis and
reticulocytosis.
Children in Santa Cruz were found to have
elevated levels of arsenic and lead in their blood. Mothers also
complained of headache, blurred vision, eye pain, cough,
palpitations and muscle pain.
After the 1996 mine-tailings spill in Boac
River, some 38 residents (most of them children) of Boac and Sta.
Cruz were brought to the Philippine General Hospital in Manila for
treatment and detoxification. They all presented elevated blood lead
levels and neurological symptoms related to heavy-metal poisoning.
Toxicologist Panganiban said, “The problem
with metals like lead [which was found among many residents tested]
is that it stays in the body for long periods of time. So it can
almost affect you your whole life.”
Dr. Romeo Quijano, a professor of pharmacology
and toxicology at the University of the Philippines-Manila, said it
should be “a matter of common sense that adverse effects from one
or more toxic heavy metals are bound to occur in people residing in
areas where there are mine tailings nearby.”
“Historically,” he said, “open-pit mining
had always been associated with health and environmental
disasters.” Among the examples he cites is the decades-old gold
mining operations of Lepanto Consolidated Mining Corp. in Mankayan,
Benguet province, where, according to a 2007 paper by the Cordillera
People’s Alliance, residents have complained of “abnormal
withering of crops, sickness and death of domestic animals and high
incidence of respiratory ailments in humans.”
Provincial health officer Marquez said one
problem is that studies done on mining in Marinduque have not been
holistic in approach. “They do it separately and the findings of
the agencies don’t jibe, so we can’t really figure it out,” he
said.
At the very least, he said, he wants to know the
extent of the contamination in the affected bodies of water so that
he and other physicians could evaluate patients better.
The doctor said the provincial health office has
not received any of the water assessments conducted by the
Environmental Management Bureau under the Department of Environment
and Natural Resources.
“What I’ve been requesting is how far the
contamination has gone,” Marquez said. “They’ve been examining
[the water], but we don’t have the data.”
To be continued
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