25/10/2026
PRESS RELEASE
October 25, 2026
𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗨𝗔𝗡𝗘𝗦 𝗗𝗢𝗘𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗡𝗘𝗘𝗗 𝗔 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗖𝗢𝗔𝗟 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗘𝗥
Statement of Solidarity with the Diocese of Virac and the People of Catanduanes
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” — Genesis 2:15
The proposed extraction of coal in Catanduanes raises a fundamental moral question that must be answered before any project is allowed to proceed: what public good will this serve, and at what cost to human dignity, local communities, and God’s creation?
Bishop Luisito Occiano and the Diocese of Virac have rightly called attention to the risks that mining could bring to water sources, farms, communities, and livelihoods. These concerns should not be dismissed simply because the proposed mining area appears small on paper.
Environmental damage does not respect project boundaries. Water moves through watersheds. Pollution travels downstream. Soil erosion affects farms beyond a mine site. What happens in one part of an island can quickly become the burden of communities elsewhere.
The concern becomes even more serious because the project involves coal.
Studies and policy papers by the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development (CEED) have described coal as the dirtiest fossil fuel and documented its weakening economic viability as renewable energy becomes increasingly competitive. CEED has also cited Philippine power data showing coal generation among the more expensive sources of electricity, while renewable energy has become increasingly affordable.
This should matter greatly in deciding whether Catanduanes should be opened to coal extraction.
We are being asked to consider disturbing land, exposing communities to environmental risk, and tying local development to a fuel whose future is increasingly uncertain. That is difficult to justify, especially for a province already highly vulnerable to powerful typhoons and other climate-related hazards.
Coal carries a burden long after it leaves the ground. Its impacts are felt in the communities where it is mined, in the places where it is burned, and in the atmosphere we all share.
This is precisely why the Church speaks of integral ecology. As Pope Francis reminds us in Laudato Si’, "everything is connected" (LS, 138). The issue is not only the mine itself. It is the farmer who depends on clean water, the fisherfolk whose livelihood can be affected by polluted waterways, the worker whose labor possesses inherent dignity (Laborem Exercens, 6) and who enters a dangerous site because other jobs are scarce, and the families who will remain when the project is gone.
In accordance with the Church’s preferential option for the poor (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 182), development must never treat vulnerable workers and communities as disposable.
The Integral Ecology Ministry of Caritas Philippines supports Bishop Occiano’s call for a moratorium on mining activities that pose serious risks to the environment and public safety.
Independent environmental assessment, transparent information, genuine community participation, and strict enforcement of the law should come before any decision to proceed.
But in the case of coal, we must also ask whether opening a new mining area is still a sensible development path.
A just energy transition cannot be built by creating new dependence on an industry whose long-term viability is already weakening. Nor can communities be asked to accept environmental risks in the name of jobs without being offered safer and more sustainable livelihoods.
Workers must be part of this conversation. People who enter mining because they need to feed their families should never be treated as disposable. The transition away from coal must provide decent work and real economic alternatives.
Catanduanes has resources of far greater and more lasting value than coal beneath its soil: its water, forests, farms, seas, and the communities whose lives are rooted in them. Development should protect these assets, not place them at unnecessary risk.
Bishop Occiano said it plainly: “Let us not trade our common home for temporary wealth.” This echoes our moral duty to be faithful stewards of God’s creation rather than exploiters of the earth.
That is not a rejection of development. It is a call to exercise better judgment about the development Catanduanes needs and what the island should never be asked to sacrifice for it.
If extracting coal places communities, water, livelihoods, and the future of the island at risk for a fuel whose economic viability is already declining, and if creation groans under the weight of such exploitation, then perhaps the wisest and most faithful use of that coal is to leave it where it is.
(Sgd.)
+MOST REV. GERARDO A. ALMINAZA, D.D.
Bishop of San Carlos
President, Caritas Philippines
Interim Chairperson, Integral Ecology Ministry
