“Daddy Daddy I’m hungry. Please can I have something to eat?”...

“Daddy Daddy I’m hungry. Please can I have something to eat?”

“Son it’s like I told your older brothers and sisters and the rest of our extended family before. I don’t have job now that the Mine has closed so we don’t have any money for food. Just try to be patient while I try to find job.”

“When will you have another job Daddy?”

“Maybe if the Mine gets started again I will get my old job back”

“But Daddy everyone says that will be at least one year. And that’s only if they can build another dam on the rice land near our village. What will we do to get food and pay for all the things we need?”

“I know, I know Son. The only way we get our jobs back is when everyone sells their land they have farmed on for generations. It probably means you and your brothers and sisters will have to work or beg on the streets until then”

For those of you that can remember “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life” you probably think this is quoted from the movie. But the reality, HC members, is that this is probably the situation near the Siana mine site as we speak.

I am like anyone of the other HC members and enjoy earning a living and providing my family with the comforts of life. But I also take a moral stance that RED owes it to its shareholders AND to the community in which it operates to act in everyone’s best interest, as I am sure all of you would likewise agree. I wondered why RED had stopped publishing photos of the happy smiling faces of the locals; the answer is obvious now, there aren’t any happy ones left. If RED wants to salvage the situation and re-start the mine with their feasible solutions in whatever form or timeframe they choose, they are not leaving themselves much room to win back hearts of the locals.

Since Phillippinos have large, extended families (as in the Monty Phyton sketch) it’s likely our company’s ex-employees are directly supporting at least 4,000 people that are now down on their knees. Like many countries in SEA, the Philippines is a $1 a day country when it comes to poverty and after giving them so much hope until recently, their lives must be ravaged now. There will be children begging in the streets and maybe even selling their bodies in the nearest cities to provide enough money for the rest of their families to eat.

If there is a class action against the company I would implore you to consider making a modest additional claim to help those who cannot help, care or protect themselves. These are the forgotten ones in our investment with RED.