Enough. The Floods Have Spoken: Uphold Palawan’s Mining Moratorium.

By the Environmental Legal Assistance Center (ELAC)
Opinion | Updated - November 12, 2025

Floods Are No Longer Acts of Nature — They Are Failures of Governance.

When Typhoon Tino roared through Palawan and Cebu, and Uwan drenched the rest of the Visayas and northern Luzon, it left behind the same images we’ve seen too many times: houses half-buried in mud, families clinging to rooftops, rescuers wading through brown rivers that used to be roads.

According to the latest report from the NDRRMC, 232 people have been confirmed dead due to Typhoon Tino, with more than 2 million individuals affected nationwide. Assessments of agricultural and infrastructure damage are still ongoing and are expected to reach billions of pesos.

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of Typhoon Uwan, over 2 million residents were affected and at least 18 fatalities have been reported, based on initial data. Validation and post-disaster assessments are ongoing to determine the full extent of the damage.

And yet, every official report still uses the exact tired phrase: “extreme weather.”
Let’s be honest — the real storm has been decades in the making.

Because when forests fall, floods follow.
And when governance fails, it’s always the poor who drown first.

Palawan Saw the Warning — and Chose a Different Path.

Earlier this year, the Provincial Government of Palawan passed the 50-Year Mining Moratorium Ordinance — a historic move that suspends the approval or expansion of large-scale mining projects for half a century.

It was a decision that didn’t come easy. Lobbyists tried to kill it. Investors called it “anti-development.” Some politicians said it was “too idealistic.”

But then came the rains.

When Tino hit, northern Palawan towns — including Taytay, Roxas, Coron — and parts of Puerto Princesa City experienced severe flooding and mass evacuations. Uwan largely spared Palawan from its worst, though agencies kept heightened alert for rains. Earlier this year, easterlies had already flooded parts of southern Palawan (e.g., Sofronio Española, Puerto Princesa, Brooke’s Point), highlighting how watershed degradation magnifies risk across the island.

The floods are no longer natural — they are political.

And that’s why the Palawan Mining Moratorium matters.
It’s not just an environmental policy; it’s a line drawn in the mud — one that says: Enough.

Enough of Profits That Cost Lives

Let’s call it what it is.
Mining in critical watersheds is not “economic progress.”
It’s a demolition job — one that leaves the mountains hollow and the lowlands drowning.

We’ve seen this before.

• In Brooke’s Point, nickel mines stripped away entire slopes. When the rains came, barangays flooded with red mud for the first time in decades.
• In Narra and Bataraza, tailings and silt choke rivers that once ran clear.
• In El Nido, illegal quarrying and road cutting worsened erosion that now threatens farmlands and tourism sites alike.
• In Langogan, Puerto Princesa, where quarry operations disrupted the river flow, an IP community was flooded.

The science is simple: forests are not obstacles to progress — they are the foundation of survival.
Every tree is a flood-control structure. Every intact watershed is a long-term investment in life.

A Call to Hold the Line

Palawan’s mining moratorium will only work if local governments and civil society groups defend it together.
This means more than just passing resolutions. It means actual, consistent, on-the-ground enforcement — and saying no even when it’s inconvenient, even when a contractor or campaign donor comes knocking.

LGUs must align their Comprehensive Land Use Plans (CLUPs) and Forest Land Use Plans (FLUPs) with the moratorium.
CSOs must continue to monitor, report, and mobilize public support.
And the national government must stop pretending that environmental collapse is “local business.”

Because if one island can resist extractive greed, others can too.
If Palawan can do it, so can Negros. So can Samar. So can Cebu, if it ever wants to stop drowning in its own runoff.

This isn’t isolationism — it’s leadership.

Comprehensive Planning, Not Cosmetic Projects

We don’t need another “flood-control” project that’s really just a contractor’s payday.
We don’t need more short-term fixes that fill headlines but not reservoirs.

We need comprehensive, science-based, watershed-level planning — the kind that looks 50 years ahead, not just until the next election.
We need budgets that fund reforestation, not reclamation.
We need leaders who know the difference between “development” and “damage.”

Because we already know what doesn’t work — it’s everything we’ve been doing for the last thirty years.

Let’s Call Them What They Are

Let’s stop talking in circles.
The problem isn’t “weak enforcement.” It’s willful neglect.
It’s officials who sign permits they don’t read.
It’s contractors who treat rivers like drainage canals and forests like free raw material.
It’s agencies that issue clearances faster than they act on violations.
And it’s politicians who remember the environment only when it floods — and forget it again when the sun comes out.

ECAN Zones changed to accommodate extractives, from restricted use to controlled use. And to mask it up, a controlled use was also converted to restricted use. In tagalog, it's called, Dagdag-Bawas.

We all know who they are.
The ones who show up in flood zones for photo ops, then return to their offices to approve the next quarry permit.
The ones who say “we’ll reforest” but plant palm oil instead of native trees.
The ones who speak of “resilience” as if people could rebuild their homes faster than the next storm can tear them down.

We need to stop normalizing incompetence as compassion and corruption as pragmatism.
Because the real disaster isn’t the rain — it’s the leadership that refuses to change.

If the government can order road closures for VIP motorcades, it can certainly shut down illegal mining. (Section 19 and Section 9 ng SEP at Mining Act)
If we can count votes, we can count trees.
And if local governments can issue business permits overnight, they can also revoke them when the business destroys a watershed.

Accountability isn’t radical — it’s governance.