07/06/2009
[I recieved an honourable mention in the 2009 National Magazine Awards for the photos and story below. Originally published in This Magazine.]
Admitting that I was a Canadian has never been as difficult as when I travelled to the Philippines to photograph two Canadian-owned open-pit mining sites last winter. The fact that I am also Filipino by blood didn’t help. (more…)
28/10/2008
Back in November of last year I visited a mining site on Rapu-Rapu island in the Philippines owned by an Australian mining firm. Oxfam-Australia has used few of my images to illustrate their newly released site report on this tiny island’s open pit mine. (more…)
05/08/2008
I read the news today, oh boy…
Apparently Canada and the Philippines are talking about signing their own ‘Visiting Forces Agreement‘ (VFA). Only good things can come out of this… (more…)
04/08/2008
*** I wrote this awhile ago about a job journalist Abe Almirol and I did for Oxfam-Australia in January about a town just beginning to build the infrastructure for an Australian open-pit mining operation in Nuevo Vizcaya, Luzon. For more images please visit my Portfolio Page. ***
It was a Wednesday afternoon and I was conducting a photography workshop in Cavite, a city near Manila when I got a call from Oxfam-Australia’s mining ombudsperson. That night I rushed back to my place in Manila (2 hours away), packed, and jumped on an overnight bus headed north towards the mineral rich mountains in Nueva Vizcaya. (more…)
19/04/2008
I was interviewed for BlogTO after my exhibition opening about my recent work in the Philippines. You can listen to it here: http://www.blogto.com/divercity_podcast/2008/04/divercity_3_alex_felipes_philippine_vignettes/
28/02/2008
As a balikbayan [Filipino with a foreign passport returning home], sometimes you’re confronted by a situation that makes you embarrassed to have a Canadian passport. This last Christmas season was pretty crushing for both the Filipino and Canadian in me.
30/12/2007
A self-portrait: I'm off to the 7.5km artificial landmass that's the result of 16 years of dumping. The causeway is made up of toxic mine tailings (a mix that includes dangerous levels of arsenic, lead, and mercury). The causeway used to be 9kms long, the tide has been slowly eroding it into the ocean. Of course this has resulted in the death of the corals and most life in this bay. What's left are caught and eaten by fishers and their families, resulting in health problems (the father and son behind me included).
I spent my Xmas on the island of Marinduque. This is where a Canadian mining company had two “accidental” spills of toxic mine tailings into two different rivers, and purposefully dumped 200 metric tonnes of the stuff right into the bay at surface level.
06/12/2007
“Show me the proof” said the Australian Ambassador to me.
He tells me this after a big talk about how amazing Australia is with it’s generous aid packages to the Phils. Apparently it provides the most livelihood aid to this country. He tells me this after I ask him what his government is planning to do about the disaster in Rapu-Rapu.
25/07/2009
Connecting The Dots: Mining, the Philippines, and Canada
Posted by alexfelipe under Canadian Politics, Commentary, The Philippines | Tags: bill c-300, corporate social responsibility, economy, human rights, mining, philippines, poverty |[3] Comments
I am not a gold person. This didn’t start with any activism, or with any real reason other than the fact that I’m just not a jewelry person period. I simply have never felt the desire for shiny that most people seem to possess.
Now that I know how the extractive process affects people (including those that look like me), I consider myself lucky.
(more…)