MVP: Poverty, not mining is the enemy

MANILA, Philippines - There was this woman who was at her salon getting her hair styled for a trip to Rome. She mentioned the visit to the hairdresser, who asked: “Rome? Why would anyone want to go there? It’s crowded and dirty. How will you get there?”

 “We’re taking PAL,” was her reply.

“PAL?!?” exclaimed the hairdresser. “That’s a terrible airline. Their planes are old, and they’re always late! So what will you do in Rome?”

“We’re going to visit the Vatican, and hope to see the Pope.”

“Well, with you and a million people trying to see him, he’ll look the size of an ant,” laughed the hairdresser.

A month later, the woman returned to the salon. The hairdresser asked about her trip to Rome.

“It was wonderful! Not only we’re on time because of PAL’s new management, and brand new plane – the city was magnificent!” exclaimed the woman.

“Well,” muttered the hairdresser, “that’s well and good, but did you get to see the Pope?”

“Actually, we were lucky. As we toured the Vatican, a Swiss guard tapped me on the shoulder, and said that the Pope liked to meet some of the tourists, so we were brought to his private room. And sure enough, the Pope walked through the door, I knelt, and he spoke a few words to me.”

“Really! What’d he say?”

The Pope said: “Where’d you get the shitty hairdo?”

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT)and Metro Pacific group chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan told his audience during Thursday night’s Ateneo Alumni Association (AAA) induction of new officers and directors that recent negative sentiments about the mining industry reminded him of this story.

“As you may be aware, I was recently involved in an interesting conversation about the future of mining in this country. I don’t intend to rehash that whole exchange in this gathering, beyond repeating that there’s nothing wrong with mining as a business model - provided of course that it’s managed responsibly and regulated well,” he said.

Pangilinan noted that if other countries have succeeded and benefited from mining, then there is no reason why the Philippines cannot. “The saddest irony is that amidst the abundance of natural resources gifted to us by providence lie abject poverty,” he said.

He emphasized that the task must be to bridge the gap between these two starkly contrasting realities, since it is poverty, not mining, that is the enemy.

Pangilinan, who chairs Philex Mining Corp., recently got into a heated discussion with Save Palawan Movement convenor Gina Lopez during a recent conference among mining industry stakeholders. Pangilinan and Lopez had opposing views on the preservation of habitats in identified mine-rich areas.

The frank exchange started when Lopez, in her open forum remarks, told Pangilinan that what he said about areas that are going to be mined are ugly are not true and advised the Philex chairman to go and visit these mining tenement places.

Pangilinan then responded and asked Lopez if she had ever been to Padcal, to

Silangan in Surigao Del Norte. “Who would go there and develop a tourism site? There’s nothing there,” he said. He went on to say how the Philex Padcal site in Benguet was deforested and denuded and that Philex had planted seven million trees there.

Lopez then took the microphone again and repeated her allegation that the Philex chief previously made a blanket statement on all mining tenement areas being “ugly”.

Pangilinan rose again and with pointed forefinger said:”I didn’t say that. Now you’re lying.”

Minutes prior to her exchange with Pangilinan, Lopez had engaged Chamber of Mines director Gerald Brimo in another heated debate, wherein Lopez said she was not lying in her statements about mining sites and their adverse impact on the ecosystems around them.

During the AAA event, Pangilinan told the audience led by Ateneo president Jose Ramon Villarin: “I’m glad to join the fellowship of our alumni, and to be back at the Ateneo. I last spoke before you two years ago to this month, in circumstances most people in my situation would probably rather forget. I must admit that I’ve asked myself more than once whether I should be so bold as to speak to you again. But if I can talk with Gina Lopez after that incident, surely I can speak to Ateneans again.”

He also pointed out that 12 years into the 21st century, Filipinos continue to drag one foot behind in the 20th , and now and then may even hobble backwards into the 19th. “When we should be well on our way to achieving a prosperous and equitable society, we continue to be stuck in poverty and injustice,” he said.

Pangilinan noted that just as the political environment is being reformed, the country must still find its economic way forward.

“We must start making the hard choices which will improve the lives of our people. We must begin doing the things that matter most to them. Poverty does not wait on politics,” he emphasized.

Pangilinan said that their belief in the Filipino can be highlighted when Hong Kong-based First Pacific took the bold step of moving its money from successful ventures in Europe and Asia to the Philippines. “In 1998, we made our biggest bet by investing in one of the nation’s best known brands - PLDT. And 10 years after, in another iconic company, Meralco. Throughout these transactions, and even before them, when we made our first investment in this country in 1985, critics all over the world said the Philippines was not the place to risk money,” he revealed.

He stressed that the results of their investments have justified their optimism. “The surge in cellular use with Smart, Talk n’ Text, and now Sun Cellular; Meralco’s forward linkage from a plain distribution utility to power generation; the success of Maynilad on non-revenue water; the expansion of our tollways. Philippine Stock Exchange data for 2011 indicate that our group’s aggregate core net income of P67.6 billion and stock market values of over P1 trillion are the largest in the country today. PLDT debt papers are the only Philippine securities recognized internationally as investment grade,” Pangilinan pointed out.