Fishermen's group leads opposition to Aussie offshore mining in Visayas

MANILA, Philippines – A group of militant fishermen are urging Boholanos and Cebuanos to oppose the oil and gas exploration being planned by NorAsia Limited, an Australian offshore mining company, at the Cebu-Bohol Strait. "There is Dagohoy in every Boholano, the same way there is Lapu-lapu in every Cebuano." That's the rallying call being used the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) to urge residents of the two island provinces to unite against NorAsia. In 1521, Lapu-Lapu and his men killed Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese explorer who led an expedition sailing under the Spanish flag in search of spices, and drove his men off Cebu. And Dagohoy led a rebellion in Bohol that lasted from 1744 to 1829. The opposition against the Austrlian firm must be as intense as the what was shown by the two Visayan heroes against the Spaniards, Francisco Hicap, Pamalakaya national chairman, said in a statement issued on Thursday. "Imagine this," Hicap said. "Some 445,000 hectares of marine waters will be subjected to seismic testing and blasting, oil and gas drilling, and sky’s-the-limit extraction of the country’s oil and gas resources in the name of transnational plunder at the expense of people’s patrimony and the environment." Last week, Cebu-based fisnhernmen belonging to Pamana-Sugbo, an affiliate of Pamalakaya, staged a fluvial protest to oppose NorAsia’s offshore mining. According to Pamana-Sugbo spokesperson Wilbert Dimol, some 50 small fishing boats with 200 fishermen on board sailed from Sibonga town to Argao town in Cebu province to dramatize what their opposition against what his group called the "Australian economic colonialization” of Cebu-Bohol Strait”. Hicap noted how a mass campaign stopped the Japan Exploration Corp. (Japex) last June from continuing with its mining activities at Tañon Strait, a protected seascape separating Cebu and Negros islands. Japex said it would leave because it found out that there is no substantial deposit of gas and oil in the area. But Hicap thinks otherwise. - D'Jay Lazaro, GMANews.TV