Multimedia Arts senior student Edmarc Nicolai Reyes’ capstone project earned a partnership with ABS-CBN Foundation Green Thumb Campaign regarding a collaboration dedicated to supplement the foundation’s project for environmental awareness and at the same time, aims to inform people about the MarCopper mining disaster in Marinduque which happened 20 years ago.

According to Reyes, the partnership came up after ABS-CBN planned to collaborate with the College for a project which included the country’s mining situation. Ms. Sharon Arriola, one of Reyes’ capstone advisers, then endorsed Reyes’ capstone project and was fitted into the network’s project plan. Reyes’ project was also intended to educate people about the hazards and risk of irresponsible mining.

Having relatives that were natives from Marinduque Province, Reyes already had prior knowledge on the region and the disaster that happened in the island. In conjunction to this, Reyes shared that the said project was not his initial proposal for the capstone—that he changed his project halfway, all during his thesis term, when his mother told him about the said mining disaster that happened in Marinduque.

The project is also committed to the awareness campaign of the the rehabilitation program being done in the affected areas of the province after the incident. This is because even though the disaster happened 20 years ago, it still left serious casualties in the island—involving people displaced from their homes and poor economic conditions.

According to Environmental Justice Atlas, an environmental website, the MarCopper Mining Corporation incident was one of the largest environmental disasters in the Philippine history. In addition, the Environmental Justice Atlas claimed that the mining resulted to uncontrolled dump sites and toxic landfills and waste treatment which harmed the province’s natural resources.

Ms. Arriola advised Reyes to have a more intimate encounter with the province through interviewing the victims of the calamity and researching more on the local government unit and non-government organizations of the area in terms of their past about what were the actions of the government as well as non-government organizations in during and after the said disaster.

Written by Bryan Nonay and Timothy Santos
Photo courtesy of Nestor Abrogena