Tribal Leaders Denounce Corporate Mining
At least 100 elders
from the
Mountain
Province
gathered for a two-day congress and strengthened their opposition to
corporate mining and military deployment in communities where anti-mining
sentiments are strong.
BY ARTHUR L. ALLAD-IW
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat
BAGUIO CITY—At least
100 elders from the Mountain Province (394 kms from Manila) gathered for a
two-day congress and strengthened their opposition to corporate mining and
deployment of soldiers to communities where anti-mining sentiments are
strong.
The elders from the
dap-ay (indigenous socio-political institution) and the bodong
(peace pact) practicing communities gathered Nov. 20-22 at Barangay
Dallic, Bontoc, Mountain Province for the 1st Provincial Elders
Congress. The dap-ay and the bodong are institutions where
the elders’ role in community leadership is practiced.
The gathering led to
the founding of the elders’ organization called the Movement for the
Advancement of Inter-Tribal Unity or Development (MAITUD) which came up
with a signed unity declaration on their position on issues affecting
their systems and ancestral domain.
“The administration
of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo aggravated our situation when it opened our
lands for large-scale mining through its National Minerals Policy, which
implemented the pro-corporate Mining Act of 1995,” stated their
declaration written in Ilocano.
In an earlier
Northern Dispatch report, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) of
the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in the
Cordillera revealed that from the more than 1.8 million hectares land area
of the region, almost 1.7 million hectares are applied for mining by
corporate interest.
The applications
range from foreign financial technical assistance to mineral production
sharing agreement and have different stages from applications to
explorations. Most of the applicants are foreign corporations.
The elders’ statement
claimed that the administration’s policy allows big corporate mining
corporations to rape their ancestral domain which they have nurtured since
time immemorial.
“With these
applications are widespread military deployment to ensure the
implementation of the mining projects and to silence the opposition of the
affected communities,” said the MAITUD statement.
They said that the
mining of their lands is a violation of their collective right. The
deployment of the military, on the other hand, leads to various human
rights violations.
The elders reported
that their right to the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) mandated
by the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997 were run over by the
mining applications. They cited the cases of Kalinga and Apayao where the
FPIC of the communities were not sought before the exploration by a
foreign mining company.
The elders included
in their program different means to broaden their ranks and linkages for
their campaign to defend their life and dignity, and their land and
resources.
The elders, through
the bodong, played a great role in unifying the Kalingas and Bontok
struggle against the World
Bank-funded Chico River dams and the
Tinggians struggle against the logging by the Cellophil Resources Company
over their ancestral domain. Bulatlat
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