Finally I got a bus, bound for Tagum, after a daylong office-related chore in Davao City. I took an aircon bus bound for Butuan City. I took a seat next to a guy, probably 5 years younger than me. His name is Lito. He comes from Maitum, Sarangani. He is a professional driver and a licensed heavy equipment operator(HEO).
Our friendly conversation filled that hour and a half shuttling from Davao City towards Tagum. Although, my new friend will have five more hours to travel before reaching the town of Carrascal, Surigao del Sur, where he is driving a new Yutong Mining Dump Truck for a company that got a contract of transporting red soils from sites located in towns of Cantilan and Carrascal, both of Surigao del Sur. Lito disclosed that is being paid Four Hundred Pesos per loading towards awaiting barges, 22 kilometers away from the mining site. Lito was unreserved upon announcing that he overheard from his Filipino- Chinese employer that the red soils mined from the two Surigao del Sur towns were being exported to China and Greece.
Those bit of information I got from a bus seatmate prompted me to write this note. I remember those days when logging trucks regularly plying the Agusan-Davao national highway, hauling trees from forests sites of Melale and Agusan del Norte towards the wharf in Maco, Davao Province (now COMVAL). I was a kid back then. It was the later part of 70’s until the early 80s. Those logging companies are nowhere to be found now, sad to note, our natural resources were also gone, those century-old trees where being exported to Japan and other opulent nations back in Marcos days. What remained are these bald mountains that surrounded many settlements here in Mindanao.
Yesterday it was just our forests, today they mined our red soils too. Even though, I am 400 kilometers away from the towns of Cantilan and Carrascal of Caraga Region and I could be misconstrued as over reacting about an iron ore mining that are taking place hundreds of kilometers away from me. Why should I have to concern myself with this? If the folks in Surigao are all benefiting from the employments generated from this mining business, what is wrong about this economic activity in the secluded and mountainous areas of Northeastern Mindanao? Anyway, the local governments in those towns are generating extra ordinary revenues from royalties and concessions fees. Their lives would be dramatically changed because of the influx of business establishments in the area and the circulation of millions of pesos coming from wages of town residents employed in the mining company.
Soon the above named towns could be the next new emerging First Class municipalities in Caraga region, but, at what cost? What would be impending consequences that will affect not just the places where mining sites are located but the whole Island of Mindanao in general? Should we all wait for another Pablo or Yolanda to strike, in order for us to awaken from decades of stupor and indifference regarding our wanton abuse of nature? Many thought that nature is our bondslave and existed only to bring comfort to this arrogant dominant species of an aging planet. What if we are wrong and instead of treating nature as our bondslave, we are being asked by the Maker to treat nature, this earth as our equal partner and deserves respect and care from us humans. What if all anthropocentric doctrines that reinforced human species' supremacy over other life forms in this planet is a lie and needs reformulation? What happens, if the red soils in Cantilan and Carrascal were all depleted? What's next to this desecration of nature in Caraga? Will our national government just keep mum about this travesty of our natural resources in Caraga?
The bygone era of logging magnates have bequeathed to us a ravaged forests and disrobed mountains. What will I give as a gift to the next generation of Filipinos, if, what remaining natural resources that I have today are completely sold out and gone in the next 10 years?