oceanagold - ch7 news story last night, page-4

with regards to this news story, i got the following response from OGC.

Thank you for your email and for your interest in the recent Channel 7 News report regarding our Didipio project in Luzon Philippines. Like you, we were upset with the story.

OceanaGold is a responsible gold miner with a lengthy track record of financing, building and successfully operating gold mines in New Zealand. Since acquiring the Didipio project three years ago, our Company has been working with our many stakeholder groups in the Philippines to bring these same standards and successful processes to the Philippines.

Unfortunately, the reporter, Mr. Duffy undertook to create a sensational piece that was staged, used video footage from over a year ago which was out of context and failed to provide the viewers with a clear picture of the project and the Company's operations in the Philippines.

OceanaGold is not demolishing or burning homes as was suggested, this is simply rubbish. In fact, the footage shown of the dismantling of a house was from last year, was on land purchased by the Company, and was being taken apart by the owner with assistance from the Company so that the materials could be salvaged.

OceanaGold has been applying a fair and generous compensation scheme since December 2005. The scheme provides compensation well in excess of the market value and is applied using a process that follows the rules and regulations set out in the Philippine Mining Act, a mining code that is based on Western Australian mining law.

Legitimate community members who were living in the area affected when this process started in December 2005 have been or will be compensated.
So far, more than 600 transactions have been completed to the tune of approximately A$7 million.

We have made it clear however that illegal squatters who have erected shanties, most of which are uninhabitable, solely for the purpose of extracting compensation from the Company, will not be compensated.

We make no apologies for this as these people are trying to make a quick dollar at the expense of the legitimate Didipio community. The reporter failed to mention in his piece that the vast majority of those who were assembled for his story were either illegal squatters or illegal small scale miners.

We were happy to sit down with Mr. Duffy to discuss the company's response to his allegations. However, despite an extensive interview involving numerous lines of questioning, Mr. Duffy decided not to include substantial parts of our interview in his final piece. Instead he chose to rely on outdated footage, improper context, and outright non-truths.

OceanaGold is committed to the social and economic development of the regions in which we operate. We are a responsible company and will continue to work with local communities to ensure the communities in which we operate prosper.