Flood & Mining: Could they be connected?

Recent flooding in Cantilan (click to view photos)are being linked to the present illegal mining activities in one of it’s baranggays. Is it fair to say they are to be blamed? I guess not!

While I was checking my Facebook, I noticed some people blaming mining as one of the reasons why Cantilan had it’s worst ever flooding. I asked my self, how could the mining activities in Cabangahan be involved in such disaster?

In my opinion, to be fair to the mining firm and to their die hard supporters, i believe so that they are not to be blamed of what recently happened to our beloved Cantilan, BUT had they not illegaly demolished the forest of Cabangahan (see more photos of the present forest in Cabangahan) and Carrascal, there would’nt be a disaster such worse as this, it could’ve been lessened. The forest, specifically the trees play a big part in absorbing heavy rains. Can they be connected now?

Now as I go on looking at the pictures, i came across to some friends who are offended by some people who accuse mining as cause of the recent flood. In fairness also to those who had been thought of blaming mining, I myself, to be honest could be considered one of those, but I believe that the thought of us accusing mining is being misunderstood, at least in my case because when I heard about the heavy rains and strong winds, and yes the flood, the possible effects of mining automatically popped-up my mind though I don’t blame them for what happened today, it instead reminded me of how worse it would get should they continue to mine the rainforest of Cantilan and Carrascal. If most of us thought that what happened recently is worse, then how much more if there will be no more trees left.

This just reminds of what happened in 2009 (Watch Video) we had experienced the same disaster but this year was just worse than we thought (watch video). Now imagine what could possibly happen in the next years if we continue to allow such destructive and illegal mining in our town?

Given of our realization, this is the best time to be aware, and to take part in our cause to protect the environment. Mining is just one factor that could devastate our town, we have more issues on proper garbage/waste disposal, dynamite fishing and such.

We should support our various local NGOs in this cause. We, the so-called future generation should be involved because the fight for the protection of our environment is about us and our future, so that we will have a beautiful Cantilan to live in, and be proud of.

We had our chance to realize it in the past two years, now we are having that chance again, let us not ignore it. Let us stand to protect Cantilan.

Now going back, are they really to be blamed? NO! for now. But it should be stopped! A saying goes “PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE.” Enough is enough.

The issue is not Mining but the concern of Cantilan being susceptible to such calamities or disasters. Without our rainsforest we are doomed. Let us Save Cantilan, and Save our Watershed!

Internet: The New Mission Area

“There are 8 million Filipinos using facebook.” This was what I heard yesterday in Fr. Jayboy Gonzales’ workshop on Social Media. It’s amazing how the internet has become part of our lives already. Just one click and the whole world knows. I wonder how it was during the time of Christ, 2,000 years ago. No TV, no radio, no facebook, only pure word of mouth and scroll writing. Yet, His disciples were very passionate in spreading His word, to the point of Christianizing Rome. I think with that kind of drive and with today’s technology, more and more people will come to know Christ. I also heard in the workshop that the Pope said that “the new mission area of the Church is cyberspace.” To reach out to people for them to know Christ through the internet, I believe we need to possess these qualities:

Humility
It takes a lot of dying to ourselves when we write about God. He is to be glorified. With this comes the humility to write about Him through our lives. The temptation of ‘false humility’ will set in once we try to testify. Thoughts like, “I’m not good enough to write” or “I have nothing much to say.” This might lead us to be suppressed in sharing the goodness of God in our lives.

Boldness
We cannot be selfish of God’s message for us. Good news is to be spread, not only to be kept in our journals and stacked in our cabinets. We need to be bold and share so more people may know Christ.

Diligence
This is the hard part. To be consistent. It is really a challenge to regularly write online. Apart from writing, we have a lot to do in our day’s work. But I believe diligence has its benefits. By writing consistently we become more attuned to God because we are brought into a situation to seek Him. We come to ask “Lord, what shall I write today?” Diligence leads us to surrender before God and let Him take over our writing.

Millions of people are out there floating in cyberspace, needing to hear about God. Let us reach out and share our lives to glorify Him. And then he told them,“Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone. Mark 16:15″

Temporary Restraining Order (TEPO) Issued against MMDC by RTC Judge

Cantilan, Surigao del Sur, November 11, 2010:

At 9 a.m. this morning, a summons for a hearing with a 72 hour TEPO was served to Edgardo V. Caringal, Resident Mine Manager of Marcventures Mining Development Corporation (MMDC). The hearing is scheduled tomorrow, Friday at 8:30 a.m. with RTC Judge Alfredo P. Halad.

A environmental case against MMDC was filed at the RTC court in Cantilan by a group of small farmers, members of indigenous communities, fisher folks, women and children, seeking for judicial intervention so that their rights to health and a balanced ecology may be upheld and the autonomy of local governments be protected in the face of the destructive and illegal mining operations conducted by MMDC in the proclaimed Watershed Forest Reserve of Cantilan, Madrid and Carrascal under Presidential Proclamation No. 1747.

Farmers, Irrigators, Fisherfolks, BAYWATCH and other NGOs rally as they protest against the illegal mining of MMDC. Copyright © 2010 Clipse Iriberri. All rights reserved.

On November 8, in a quiet show of protest, close to 400 farmers and fisher folk accompanied by members of a Non-Government Office coalition, quietly marched from the parish convent grounds to the offices of MMDC, to tell the mining company that their mining operations is a big threat to their livelihood and politely requested them to stop their operations in protected critical watershed. The march continued to the DENR office and culminated at the Tribunal, a 131 year old building which houses the offices of the Local Government Unit. The Vice Mayor invited the marchers to a dialogue where he and SB member John G. Vega tried to address their concerns.

Vice Mayor Virgilio Azarcon assured the group that Mayor Genito Guardo, who was on leave, supports the group’s stand against mining in Cantilan and also wants to file legal action against the mining company. SB Vega’s resolution to file legal action against the mining company in October was approved last Tuesday, November 9.

At the dialogue, SB Vega informed the group that he saw a copy of the business permit issued to MMDC by Carrascal Mayor Vicente Pimentel former governor of Surigao del Sur. MMDC was not given a permit by Mayor Guardo of Cantilan.

MMDC rehabilitated its old logging roads from its mining site in Brgy Cabangahan, in Cantilan to Brgy. Panikian in Carrascal when it failed to get a permit from Cantilan Mayor Guardo.

MMDC’s Mineral Product Sharing Agreement (MPSA) is within the 43,601 hectare Critical Watershed area declared by Presidential Proclamation 1747 on March 23, 2009. The proclamation explicitly mandated that: “The DENR shall immediately undertake the final survey and delineation on the ground of the boundaries of the watershed. This critical watershed shall be under the administrativejurisdiction of DENR and shall be managed in accordance with the provisions of RA 7586 or the NIPAS Act of 1992.

A Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) was created which promptly issued a resolution to temporarily stop the mining company’s operations until the delineation of the watershed. The DENR ignored the resolution and the mining company was issued a “notice to proceed” to Development Stage by the Mines & Geosciences Bureau, clearly violating the NIPAS Act.

Hundreds of Farmers, Irrigators, Fisherfolks, BAYWATCH, and other NGOs rally as they protest against the illegal mining of MMDC. Copyright © 2010 Clipse Iriberri. All rights reserved.



Nick Matthew, son of Tinty Iriberri, who represents children and those yet unborn in the suit. Copyright © 2010 Clipse Iriberri. All rights reserved.

more photos of the protest, click here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=92281&id=1060250368

more photos of the filing of case, click here:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=92558&id=1060250368

 

IF YOU CAN CORRECTLY PRONOUNCE EVERY WORD IN THIS POEM, YOU WILL BE SPEAKING ENGLISH BETTER THAN 90% OF THE NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS IN THE WORLD. AFTER TRYING THE VERSES, A FRENCHMAN SAID HE’D PREFER SIX MONTHS OF HARD LABOUR TO READING SIX LINES ALOUD. TRY THEM YOURSELF.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

-B. Shaw

 

TOP 10 REASONS TO SMILE

1. It makes you attractive.
2. It changes your mood.
3. It is contagious.
4. It relieves stress.
5. It boosts your immune system.
6. It lowers your blood pressure.
7. It releases endorphins, natural pain killers and serotonin – natural antidepressant.
8. It lifts the face and makes you look younger.

 

11 reasons why we should drink more green tea

1 It is an excellent source of anti-oxidants

2 It burns fat and enables you to exercise longer

3 It prolongs your life

4 It lowers stress but boosts brain power

5 It reduces high blood pressure

6 It helps to protect your lungs from smoking

7 It helps protect your liver from alcohol

8 It prevents tooth decay and cures bad breath

9 It helps preserve and build bone

10 It boosts your immunity against illness

11 It rehydrates you better than water

 

Mining could be cause of Reporter’s Death, ABS-CBN Executive addresses an appeal to the public

On january 24, reporter Gerry Ortega was found murdered. Reports  have been saying that possible reason of the killing was because of the reporter’s strong opposition to mining firms wanting to mine the island of Palawan. On February 1, Ms. Gina Lopez, a close friend of Mr. Gerry Ortega issued an apeal to the public. Provided below is the Appeal of Ms. Lopez:

My dear friends,

On January 24 a very dear friend and colleague Gerry Ortega was shot in the head dead. I was just with him that weekend – and a few minutes before he died what we were discussing over the phone was an anti-mining campaign in Palawan – given that on December two huge mining applications were railroaded – and they were to be near protected sites.

Gerry is dead but we will not let go of his dreams – and mine – and probably yours too.

Palawan has 17 key bio diversity sites – which means it is part of the 70% bio diversity sites which are essential for sustaining life in the planet. It has 2 world heritage sites, 8 protected sites. Yet if you see Palawan on the map you will note that it is a very thin island – which is 82% mountain. It means that if the forest gets denuded and the minerals excavated – the tailings seep directly into the sea affecting the coral reefs. The top soil is thin – and the island eco system is fragile.

Mining is not the way to go for Palawan. I have five eco tourism sites wherein the communities involved can now send their children to school, can dream bigger dreams. Mayor hagedorn in Puerto Princesa has banned mining and logging – and focused on tourism and agriculture. From 2 flights a week, Puerto Princesa now boasts 10 flights a day. His revenues have gone up from several million to several billion.

Mining as an economic path in a magnificent “Last Frontier” is based on a paradigm of economic growth that is myopic and archaic . In this age of climate change and global warming any economic development that does not recognize and revere the web of life should be thrown in the dustbin.

Please please support the ten million signature campaign to Stop Mining in Palawan. The richness of Palawan is the wealth and pride of the country, it is the wealth of the world. Log in to no2mininginpalawan.com .. register your vote and please please send it to thousands others. You can also include your household by downloading the form printing it – and faxing it to 4152227 or you can scan it and send it to signatures@no2mininginpalawan.com. Questions can be sent to signatures@no2mininginpalawan.com.

Gina Lopez
Managing Director
ABS-CBN Foundation Inc.

Justice will be served as we continue to fight for our beloved environment…

Missing Lolo Nick and Lola Ading!!!

Our relatives here in Cagayan de Oro (CDO) came to visit us and we had dinner… After dinner Tita Josie said she wanted to look at old pictures of the Quintos family, and while we were  scanning the photos, we found a photo of both lolo and lola, our family picture (just me and cyril then) with lola ading… I was wondering why it had a copy here in CDO? Then when I was  about to share the photo on my Facebook,  I saw posts of my relatives about remembering Lola Ading’s death anniversary which did remind me of those days when Lola Ading used to take care of me… I will always be grateful to you Lolo and Lola… I miss you…

Nacho Libre!!!

yummy nachos!

had dinner with diaz and quintos relatives… spaghetti, grilled chicken and soda! made my day!

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