Pasil Mayor Artemio Dalsen said that the local government unit (LGU) is standing pat on an old resolution that the municipality will welcome mining only if it has no negative impact on the environment "especially the agricultural lands downstream."

Dalsen said that the resolution was passed in 2000 when the LGU received a copy of a resolution of the sangguniang bayan of Tabuk "which totally bans mining."

"Even without the resolution of Tabuk, we were fully aware that there is a need to safeguard the farmlands of that municipality because half of the rice consumption of Pasil is sourced there," Dalsen recalls.

Dalsen recalled that during the operation of the BBGMI in the early 80s, the aquatic life in the Pasil River into which the mine dumped its wastes was wiped out, noting that aquatic life returned to the river many years after the mines closed in 1986.

Dalsen said that even with the promotion by the Arroyo administration of the mining industry, he does not see a change in the stand of the municipal government.

He related that a certain Frank Lubbock who introduced himself as a representative of the Atlas Mining Corp. has been calling him since November and expressing his firm’s interest in reopening BBGMI.

"When I told him of the stand of the LGU, he said that there is now a technology which could make mine wastes non-detrimental to agriculture. But I still have not read about such technology," Dalsen said.

Dalsen also said that in the event that Lubbock is telling the truth about the existence of the technology, the big question is how to stop a mining operation the moment it has started.

The mayor sees an answer in the Indigenous People’s Republic Act which requires the granting of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) whenever development projects are undertaken in ancestral domains.

"It FPIC should spell out that the mining operation will be automatically stopped the moment the same is found to be detrimental to the environment especially agriculture," Dalsen said. (Estanislao Albano Jr.)