SURIGAO CITY—More than a dozen journalists from all over Mindanao are attending a four-day seminar workshop here on how to cover and report extractive industry in the country.
Organized by the Philippine Press Institute (PPI), the seminar includes a site visit on a mine operated by Nickel Asia Corporation (NAC), one of the biggest nickel miners in the country, in Claver town, Surigao del Norte.
PPI executive director Ariel Sebellino said similar seminar-workshops have been conducted in Visayas and Luzon, and the Mindanao leg will be the last. He said the Mindanao leg is being held in Caraga Region because of its status as the de facto mining capital of the Philippines.
Sebellino said the seminar-workshop also aims to orient journalists on recent efforts of both government and non-government organizations to establish transparency in the country’s extractive industry.
Because of this, PPI has partnered with independent watchdog Extractive Transparency Initiative (IETI) to assist journalists in heightening their knowledge on the intricacies of the extractive industry.
In her talk, EITI Philippine coordinator Ma. Karla Espinosa said her group hopes to tap journalists in helping create public awareness on the country’s extractive industry through their periodic financial reports and regulatory analyses.
Espinosa encouraged journalists to dig into these reports to inform the public on the social, environmental and other relevant issues hounding not only the minerals sector but other players in the extractive industry as well. (Mark D. Francisco/PNA)
