GOOD NEWS FROM CEBU WESTERN SEABOARD!
CEBU CITY, June 3, 2005 (STAR) INSIDE CEBU By Bobit S. Avila - The big news a couple of weeks ago was that Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. (ACMDC) will be raising $150 million through a mix of initial public offering (IPO) and short-term loans to finance the rehabilitation and reopening of its Toledo copper mine which was shut down more than 10 years ago due to so many factors, foremost among them its aggressively militant labor union.In the 70s, any engineering graduate in Cebu wishing to find a good job went to the Atlas Mines where he could practice his profession (I guess that was true for the graduates of other cities as well). At its height, the ACMDC had more than 10,000 workers earning a living in Toledo City. It is for this reason why Toledo, in no time, became a city. After all, the Atlas Mines was the biggest copper mine in all of Asia and considered the third largest copper mine in the world.
Whenever I got to visit my uncle, Dr. Oliverio Segura who worked at the Atlas Mines, I would be awed seeing those humongous dump trucks of WABCO (Westinghouse Air Brake Co.) the size of a three-story building that hauled copper to be loaded on foreign ships. Back then, the only La Salle high school on Cebu island was located in Bo. Lutopan and yes, there was a state-of-the-art medical center where the workers received good medical attention and where my uncle had an office.
But when the copper business started to slacken, its militant union was uncompromising and after a bitter struggle (often against other rival unions), the Atlas Mines was shut down... and soon, the people of Toledo City felt its loss. Business and development slowed down as well in Toledo City and soon, the only thing that Atlas Mines was contributing to Cebu was the use of the Carmen power plant, which now supplied power, once exclusively to the mines, to power-hungry Metro Cebu.
Two years ago, I brought my family to Bacolod via the Toledo-San Carlos route. But since I missed the morning ferry, I had to wait for three hours for the next ferry. But what do we do in Toledo City for three hours? Well, I drove straight to the main gate of Atlas Mines and flashed my Philippine STAR press card and they allowed my 4x4 to go in. Since we had visited the mines in Lutopan so many times in the past, it was not difficult to find my way around. But all the once-asphalted roads were now broken or gravel roads, and yes, I saw the rusting hulks of those old WABCO dump trucks lined up waiting for the scrap yard. I went to the medical facility where my uncle used to work and only the shell of this building was left. What a sad, sad story for a once great business venture.
This is why I was elated with the report of Rocel C. Felix that if they get that $150 million soon, the Toledo mine would be reopened because that would mean more jobs for the poor people of Toledo and a great boon to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s promise of a million new jobs. My earnest hope is that lessons should be learned not just by the militant labor unions and its members, but also by ACMDC itself; things should have not gone so far that they were forced to shut down.
Like what we’ve been writing about, just a mere 17 kilometers north of Toledo City is the town of Balamban, where the nation’s biggest shipyards are located which have transformed this once sleepy town into a bustling community of highly skilled workers whose common goal is to someday become part of Asia’s biggest shipyards. With the reopening of the Atlas Mines and the continuing boom of Balamban shipyards, the Western seaboard of Cebu, which has been neglected by the politicians for so long, will join its eastern counterpart in the development and growth of the entire island of Cebu.
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On the subject of power plants, we got in our mail a document from Greenpeace Southeast Asia that it has taken coal fly ash samples from Toledo City and the town of Naga (where the Salcon Power operates its thermal power plants) and that they contain mercury and other heavy metals like arsenic, chromium and lead. In short, Greenpeace is accusing Mirant Power of non-compliance with strict international environmental standards which, of course, Greggy Romualdez of Mirant Power denies.
Frankly speaking, I have always been wary of non-government organizations (NGOs) like Greenpeace which go out of their way to advocate environmental concerns, which almost always get into the news headlines because of their audacity, and in the end, those headlines produce more funds for their organizations. After all, their reports like "Climate Killers" are quite catchy. But in the end, their concerns are blown out of proportion.
This happened to the K & A shipbreaking facility in Balamban 10 years ago where a self-proclaimed environmental organization insisted that the shipbreaking facility was ruining the environment. But when we asked these so-called environmentalists which was more polluted — the Port of Cebu or Balamban — they refused to give a reply. The reason, of course, was clear: the Port of Cebu was so polluted, while in Balamban, even Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, who drove there to see the alleged pollution himself, was amazed at the crystal clear waters where you could even see the schools of small fish.
Later I found out that the NGO concerned was funded by the Japanese labor union of the company involved in the shipping operations in Balamban. The labor union was sore at the Japanese shipyard for expanding its operations to Cebu, which meant lesser jobs for the Japanese. But in the end, it was only because of the existence of these labor unions that forced higher wages for their workers and drove the shipyard business out of Japan.
So now, are we seeing a repeat of this scenario by Greenpeace, more so that we just got information that Aboitiz Equity Ventures (AEV) is planning to invest in a coal-fired power plant with the Korean Power Corp. (KEPCO) in Cebu and Davao with an investment of between $300 million and $500 million? Well, the ball is in the hands of the Department of Energy (DOE) or Mirant Power to refute what Greenpeace is accusing them.
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
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