THERE IS a long-running war in the Philippines, and it is being waged by three super-rich mining corporations in Palawan against the Filipino people and God’s creation there.
The firms are planning to cut down more than 188,765 magnificent primeval trees with permits from their contacts in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Their impending destruction is likely without the approval of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. This environmental crime will be laid on his doorstep unless he stops it.
Ongoing open-pit-mining operations are being compared to environmental crime scenes, as the mining companies named below, with the DENR’s approval, have planned to wreak more devastation.
The nickel ore extracted from such operations is of little benefit to the Filipino people. It enriches the Chinese, who get 90 percent of the raw ore exports to make the stainless steel and batteries that are sold back to the Philippines. The rest are exported to Indonesia, Japan and South Korea.
Two Japanese-owned processing plants in the Philippines semi-process the raw ore and export it to Japan.
The Filipino people get no benefit because corrupt officials divert the funds earned when the mining companies pay taxes. Most of the nickel extraction and refining is funded by Japanese state-owned banks.
The destruction of Philippine rainforests deprives every Filipino and environmentalist of these magnificent natural wonders, their wildlife and their protective climate cover. The trees targeted by mining companies with DENR permits are not covered by the moratorium passed by the Palawan provincial government in March 2025.
Gov. Dennis Socrates led the provincial government in declaring a 50-year moratorium on all new pending mining applications in Palawan under Provincial Ordinance 3646. It is designed to guard and protect the rainforests’ unique status as the only original old-growth rainforest in the country.
The “last ecological frontier,” they say of Palawan, which also has huge mangroves and coral reefs.
The mining firms are expanding their open-pit or surface mining operations by cutting millions of trees in the process.
Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Taytay told religious leaders to take a stand to protect the forests and speak out against environmental destruction, and called on the people to save Creation.
Palawan as a whole was designated as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Man and Biosphere Reserve in 1990 and is revered worldwide as a rare home of species found nowhere else on Earth. Its forests are full of rare and unique species, such as the Palawan bearcat, Palawan pangolin, and the majestic Manggis tree.
These forests have an immense capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and hold back climate change and protect the nearby marine life in the Coral Triangle. Indigenous communities have lived in Palawan for millennia. (To be continued)/PN
