It remains questionable, however, whether the Philippines will ever get much of those resources out of the ground, given public outrage over the despoliation caused by the mining industry. Those offences include driving indigenous peoples off mining lands without compensation, leaving abandoned mines to deliver up a toxic mix of poisonous minerals into rivers and streams, and other shortcomings that have earned the industry the implacable enmity of the Catholic Church, the communist New People’s Army, environmentalists, populist local leaders, human rights activists and indigenous peoples, among others. NPA guerillas, either because they are denied extortion money or to further their aims, regularly descend on mining operations and destroy fleets of expensive mining vehicles.
The environmental and social damage was so severe that President Benigno S. Aquino III, shortly after he came into office, issued a18-month moratorium on mining until guidelines could be promulgated reforming a disastrous industry.
http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4705&Itemid=214
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