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INDIGENOUS
PEOPLE'S WATCH
Canadian Mining
Firm Driving Subanons Off Their Sacred Land
Siocon’s main water source damaged by erosion
from open-pit gold mine
“TVI
is not concerned about the spiritual aspect…or the ecological aspect. They
are only concerned about the economic aspect. Do they intend to live alone
and us to die?” – Gody Galos, Save the Siocon leader.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
The Siocon River, stilted from
erosion
Mt. Canatuan in
Siocon, Zamboanga del Norte (390 kms. northwest of Davao in southern
Philippines) is sacred land to the
town’s 2,000-strong Subanon tribe. Having a number of creeks all flowing
into the Siocon
River, it is the town’s main water source.
It is said to be the ancestral domain of Apo (Old Man) Manglang, who
settled in Siocon – the first person ever to do so – in the 17th
century.
It is now home to
Timuay (Tribe Leader) Jose “Boy” Anoy, a descendant of Apo Manglang.
But since last April,
he has been able to climb the mountain only once. And he had to do it
undercover. The Toronto Ventures, Inc. (TVI), a Canadian mining firm, “has
been preventing me from reaching my home in the mountain,” he told
Bulatlat in an interview Oct. 22.
Gold was discovered
in Mt.
Canatuan in 1990. Six years later, TVI
acquired a Mineral Production Sharing Agreement
(MPSA), covering 508 hectares lying within the ancestral
land of Siocon’s Subanons.
The
Subanons of Siocon were issued a Certificate of Recognition of Ancestral
Domain Area (CRADA), covering 6,524 hectares, on May 31, 2002. “But even
before we were given the certificate,” Anoy points out, “we have been the
rightful owners of that land because Subanons had been living there long
before we were born.”
Gody
Galos, a lowland farmer and leader of the broad Save Siocon Paradise
Movement (SSPM) formed earlier this year, wonders why TVI’s MPSA was not
cancelled even as the Subanons’ CRADA includes the area of TVI's MPSA.
Based
on documents from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR),
the rights of ancestral domain claimants include: “The right to negotiate
the terms and conditions for the exploitation if natural resources in the
claimed domain for the purpose of ensuring the observance of ecological
and environmental protection and conservation measures pursuant to
national and customary laws, rules and regulations.”
 
Mt. Canatuan creek, stilted due to erosion
fromTVI's open-pit mining (left); at right, the bulldozed tip of Mt.
Canatuan.
Since 1994
Anoy
reveals that Siocon’s Subanon tribe had opposed TVI mining activities
since 1994, when the Canadian mining firm began exploration operations in
the area, precisely because they would destroy the tribe’s “most sacred
ground.”
Due to strong local
opposition, TVI halted operations in 1999, but made a comeback in 2002
riding on the crest of the Macapagal-Arroyo government’s support for
large-scale mining operations.
For a long time, said
Galos, it was only the Subanons in the mountains who opposed TVI’s
operations. “But when one time we saw all the heavy equipment (like
tractors and bulldozers) being brought into
Mt.
Canatuan, we saw the real threat of disaster.”
“Already,” he said,
“the river is stilted because of erosion from TVI’s open-pit operations.”
The SSPM, says Galos,
was formed out of consultations among various farmer, community, and
church groups in Siocon concerned with the effects of TVI’s operations on
the Siocon community.
On March 14 this
year, the SSPM staged a picket about 20 kilometers from the mining site to
block the tractors and bulldozers. Three days later a unit of the
paramilitary Special Civilian Armed Auxuliary (SCAA) opened fire on the
picketers, wounding four of them.
Undaunted, the SSPM
picketers stayed on for several days more, until the tractors and
bulldozers started coming less and less frequently.
“Perhaps our fellow
picketers, sensing that there was less and less pressure, started going
home and resuming their regular work,” said Galos. Unfortunately, he said,
TVI took advantage of that to resume its operations.
The SSPM decided to
bring their case to the attention of the DENR, the Mining and Geosciences
Bureau (MGB), and even to the local government units by issuing position
papers and conducting dialogues. However, their case has been largely
ignored, say Anoy and Galos.
Metro Manila
Anoy and Galos are
now in Metro Manila, in cooperation with church groups like Kairos-Canada
and the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), as well as
non-government organizations like the Kalikasan-People’s Network for the
Environment, the Center for Environmental Concerns, and Minewatch. They
intend to bring the Siocon case against TVI to the attention of national
authorities, in the hope of prodding them to take necessary steps.
“TVI is not concerned
about the spiritual aspect. Neither are they concerned about the
ecological aspect. They are only concerned about the economic aspect,”
Galos said.
"Do they intend to live alone and us to
die?” Photos by
Mervin Toquero/Bulatlat
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© 2004 Bulatlat
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