Philippines

Submission to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Regarding: Discrimination against the Subanon of Mt Canatuan, Siocon, Zambonga del Norte, Philippines in the context of large-scale gold mining on their ancestral domain.

Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, 71st Session, 30th July-18th August 2007.

The Canadian mining map was produced by the Halifax Initiative during the National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and the Canadian Extractive Industry in Developing Countries. The Roundtables, which took place between June and November of 2006, fulfilled one of the recommendations made in the groundbreaking report, Mining in Developing Countries and Corporate Social Responsibility, tabled by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT) in June 2005.

Political killings of left-leaning activists, clergy and journalists in the Philippines have been escalating steadily under the Presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The majority of the victims belong to the Bayan Muna, a political group that is represented in parliament, of which as many as 95 members have been killed since 2001. However, other politically active groups have also been targeted, such as the Movement for National Democracy (KDP), an umbrella grouping of trade unions, farmers’ and fishermen’s organizations, and women’s and youth groups.

On October 20, 2005, MiningWatch Canada held a round table on "Regulating Canadian Mining Companies Operating Internationally" with industry, government, and civil society representatives, including invited guests from Latin America, Africa and Asia to examine options for regulatory and/or legislative change and debate the opportunities and difficulties of moving these options forward within the current Canadian political context.