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Environment groups tell SMC to stop Cotabato coal mining


San Miguel Corp., one of the country's most diversified conglomerates, should rethink its plan to penetrate the coal-mining business, non-government organizations said over the weekend. "San Miguel will surely face strong resistance from coal mining and coal plant-affected communities, from civil society organizations, and from environmental and land rights groups," said Erwin Quiñones of Legal Rights and Natural Resources–Kasama sa Kalikasan/Friends of the Earth Philippines. In March, San Miguel announced it will build a 300-megawatt coal-fired power plant in General Santos City in South Cotabato. Members of the T'boli tribe in Ned village in Lake Sebu have already asked President Benigno Aquino III to address their plight, particularly the threat to their ancestral domain, as the company is mining for coal in the area. "We bring to the President's attention the fact that San Miguel has now acquired a government permit to take over our ancestral lands," T'boli leader Datu Victor Danyan said in an article posted on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines news site. The tribe feared that at least three coal projects acquired by San Miguel., which involve 17,000 hectares, ruin the ancestral domains of the T'bolis and the Ned Agrarian Reform Community. San Miguel acquired Daguma Agro Minerals Inc. and its sister company, Bonanza Energy Resources Inc. It also acquired Sultan Mining and Energy Development Corp., which holds coal-operating contracts for production and development in the coal-rich community. "Our remaining ancestral land is our life, the source of our food and the only inheritance we could leave our children. We don't want to be displaced to give way to coal mining companies," Danyan said, quoting the news site. For their part, agrarian reform beneficiaries vowed to resist the entry of San Miguel into their agriculture areas to extract coal reserves for the proposed coal-fired power plants in the region and other existing thermal plants in the country. "We have opposed previous companies. There's no reason why we should not oppose San Miguel especially that [it] is a big company," said Yellen Zata, who chairs the anti-coal mining group Hublag Kontra Mina based in the area. —JE/VS, GMANews.TV

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