Lopez: Economy should not be propped up by destructive mining

MANILA — An economy propped up by mining and its ill-effects is not the way to go, according to incoming environment secretary Regina Lopez.

“You can’t build an economy based on suffering and injustice. It isn’t right,” Lopez told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a phone interview Wednesday.

Lopez, currently in Japan, said she has been around the country and has found the poorest places to be mining areas.

“The communities suffer and the foreigners and already rich people rake it in. This must  stop if our country is to realize the future it [deserves],” she said.  “They (miners) literally have oodles of money while our communities suffer.”

In particular, Lopez expressed disdain for open-pit mining, which she said foreign miners should — but refuse to — do in their own country.

“Why can’t we just keep our country beautiful and adopt a policy of inclusive growth?” she said.  SFM