The book, Undermining Patrimony, is about large-scale mining in Mindanao, the largest island group in the Philippines, a 7,107-island archipelagic country located in Southeast Asia. The book starts well with Mindanao as the “Land of Promise and “Land of Rivers and Lakes”. Formerly called the “Food Basket” of the country, it accounts for over 40% percent of the country’s food requirements and for being the leading producer of pineapple, coffee, cacao, banana, coconut and rubber. Mindanao is far richer and blessed than this. The book focuses on Mindanao as one of the most coveted islands by big mining companies worldwide for its rich deposits of gold, copper, silver, nickel, chromite and many other minerals. Today, holding more than third of the Philippines’ estimated mineral wealth of US$840 billion, including almost 50% of gold and 65% of nickel reserves in the country. The book reveals that in Mindanao alone, more than 296,000 hectares or 731,400 acres of land are now coveted by mining tenements mostly of large foreign and multinational companies from Australia, Canada, Switzerland, US, China and Japan. There’s the BHB-Billiton, the world’s largest transnational mining company and which is also the 20th of the world’s 81 worst polluters that owns or control a major portion of the mining industry in Mindanao. Most notorious in the island is Xstrata, which is now Glencore, a Swiss-based multinational mining company that has operations in 19 countries in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America and South America. In contrast to the richness, big profit returns and glitter of gold, the book bravely exposes the glaring dark truths about the massive destruction that big foreign and local mining do to the environment and to the life, culture and health of the local people and the country as a whole. Described as vivid and detailed as possible while enlightening and inciting the concerned and socially conscious on the urgency of the subject matter. The book not only touches on the dark side of destructive large scale mining, it also highlights the long history of struggle of the people of Mindanao in defense of their rights to their ancestral land, to a decent life and good environment. In the book are accounts and stories on the lives and struggles of the indigenous peoples of Mindanao called the Lumads like the Subanons, the B’laans and the Tibolis. Undermining Patrimony is a rich collection of stories, testimonies, direct interviews, and investigative reports including actual accounts of local inhabitants in the mining areas with documentation and analysis of highly committed human rights and environmental activists, researchers, social and natural scientists, professors and church people from all over the Philippines and from other countries as well. This book is a must reading for all peace loving citizens concerned about people’s right to health, safety, good environment, food security and right to life and livelihood.