Magnetic Moment

Employment opportunities and the promise of a better life always generate a magnetic field.

Migration Information Source said that last 2004 10 percent of 85 million Filipinos were working and/or residing outside the Philippines.

An article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer today states that “the population in Metro Manila grew by more than one million in the past seven years” and that “NSCB projected the population in the National Capital Region to be 11 million in 2007.”

People are not attracted by the pollution, high cost of living, traffic and malls. There are 17,453 people per square kilometer in Manila because of jobs, employment opportunities and the promise of a better life.

Investments that generate jobs in the provinces are magnets that help keep the people from going to metropolitan areas or abroad.

In our region, Rapu-Rapu Polymetallic Project (RRPP), the biggest private investment in Albay, is the magnet. Around fifty percent of more than 1,000 employees are residents of the host municipality and the rest were magnetized from the neighboring towns, provinces and other regions. That’s 1,000 less people in Metro Manila or 1,000 less OFWs. Not to mention the employment created or maintained by the suppliers and industries that are directly and indirectly involved in the mining operation.

Mining Engineers, Chemists, Geologists, and Metallurgists might have been working abroad, Australia or Canada perhaps, if they were not hired by the company.

For Jovet, the mining project brought him back to his native island after years of pakikipagsapalaran in Metro Manila. He is now working in the mining project earning more than his regular income in the big city. There are other hundreds of employees in the project with similar stories. They went back; they stayed to be with their families. Less absentee parents, more vibrant communities.

In the Physics of magnets, most of the people can be considered as paramagnets. They are attracted to the magnetic fields. There are also those who can be considered as diamagnets. They exhibit magnetic behavior of small magnitudes and when exposed to magnetic fields they will magnetize in the opposite direction.

Rapu-Rapu Polymetallic Project’s magnetic moment remains amidst diamagnetic publicity and paramagnets are benefited without the cost and risk of leaving their community or country.

Let’s keep the magnetic moment alive in the provinces.

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Have You Hugged A Miner Today?

By Ray Haynes, Republican Assemblyman from Murrieta, CA

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Stop demonizing the industries that harvest materials from the Earth. Your car. Your desk. Your computer. Your pots and pans. The road outside. Your lunch. What do these things have in common? All of them involved disturbing the land and the "exploitation" of natural resources in their creation. Anything around you that contains metal, plastic or rubber come directly, from mining and oil drilling Operations somewhere in the world. Anything that is wood, paper or food was either logged or harvested.

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Almost everything we have comes from mining, drilling, logging and farming, and yet these industries are increasingly under attack from NIMBYs, regulators and environmentalists.

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The public pinion of these industries is now such that if you were to poll people on the least respected careers, you'd wind up with loggers, miners and oil men right down at the bottom of the list with lawyers, telemarketers and, of course, politicians. Farmers and ranchers continue to have a pretty high level of public support as occupations, but their industries are bearing the brunt of some of the newest rounds of regulations and NIMBY attacks. While nobody wants to repeat of the massive pollution caused by some of the older mining techniques, and nobody likes to look a clear-cut forest or an oil rig, these industries have developed much less Intrusive, much more environmentally sensitive methods of extraction, but are still haunted by attacks based on images from long discarded practices.

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The regulatory system and local opposition groups have made it nearly impossible For any new mining or logging operations to exist in California, even when our society desperately needs new supplies of wood, gravel, and petroleum based products. Even when all environmental regulations can be adhered to, local opposition can scare a county or city into rejecting a necessary project. Even farmers, who have maintained a high level of support amongst the population, have started to feel the pressure of activists and regulators. It always astounds me when people move to rural area (like much of my district) and then complain about the sights and smells and flies of agricultural operations.

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It always astounds me when people move to a rural area and then complain about the sights and smells of agricultural operations.

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Dairies have been all but chased out of Southern California by angry neighbors, and air and water regulations. Other livestock operations are being harassed by similar complaints. What was once a thriving industry in Artesia, Chino and other parts of our area is now virtually non-existent. Even simpler farming operations are under attack for use of compost in the growing process and because of "fugitive dust" concerns caused by the planting and harvesting of fields.

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And farmers now fear allowing their lands to fallow out of concern that it will become habitat for some allegedly endangered critter and they'll be forbidden from replanting them in the future.

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These are all messy industries, but they are all necessary. We have made great strides over the years in making them less polluting and impactful on the natural environment and even visually on neighborhoods nearby. But the increasing costs of these resources in our country are costing all of us. High concrete, steel and lumber costs are driving up the prices of new schools, homes and roads by billions of dollars collectively, and will continue to increase as long as we don't start producing more of these products domestically.

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It is time to stop attacking loggers and miners and oil drillers and farmers. Stop accusing them of raping the earth. Stop making their livelihoods more difficult. Start appreciating the benefits we enjoy as a result of their labor and their industries. Next time you see a miner walking down the street, don't turn your nose up at, him. In fact, I think we'd all be better off if you gave him a hug instead.

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Hug a Rapu-Rapu miner today!

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