Locals from mining-affected communities, groups, and Mindanao bishops pledged to continue to demand for accountability from mining companies as well as to stand in solidarity with the environment against destructive mining during the conference organized by the Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc. (PMPI) on October 9.
“We will vigorously engage our government to demand greater responsibility and accountability from mining companies violating the rights of people and nature and will demand policy makers to push for laws that would protect all nature’s rights. We will continue to strengthen our communities to face bigger challenges and to claim their right to decide on their destiny as people,” the groups was quoted saying in Rappler.
Bishop Cerilo Casicas of the Diocese of Marbel expressed that the responsibility of caring for the “common home” and the protection and rehabilitation of the environment does not only depend on the hands of the priests but also of locals and groups.
“The work for justice and the work for the protection of the creation appears to us as constitutive to our work on evangelization,” he stated in the report.
