Representatives of a London-based mining firm are wooing Benguet town councilors, informing lawmakers of the company’s proposal to conduct a mining exploration. Its exploration permit application (Expa) involves more than 5,000 hectares in three towns.

BY LYN V. RAMO
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 37, October 21-27, 2007

TUBLAY, BENGUET – Representatives of a London-based mining firm are wooing Benguet town councilors, informing lawmakers of the company’s proposal to conduct a mining exploration. Its exploration permit application (Expa) involves more than 5,000 hectares in three towns.

MTL Philippines, a British mining company, reportedly appeared before Tublay town council recently to inform lawmakers of its intention to conduct mining exploration in the tri-boundary with Bokod and Atok.

Ironically though, Tublay Mayor Ruben E. Paoad claimed no knowledge of the mine exploration proposal. He said he has yet to read and study the MTL proposal earlier submitted to the town council.

Vice-mayor Armando Lauro said during the Kapihan sa Tublay, on Thursday last week MTL intends to do the exploration work in an area around 550 hectares in Barangays (villages) Ambassador and Baayan, near the boundary with Atok and Bokod, also in Benguet.

The Tublay project is allegedly the smallest portion of the proposed mining exploration.

“It has to go through the processes as provided for by the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA),” said Lauro. He added the company has to get the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of the affected communities of indigenous peoples.

Lauro said the mining firm did not ask for any endorsement or council action. He said it only informed the council that it would undertake mining exploration activities in the area, that the council found no urgency to act on the proposal, which they surmised, would take three to five years to process.

“We will need a massive information and education campaign,” said Lauro

Tublay is an ancestral domain of the Ibaloy people, who according to Paoad have lived there “since time immemorial.”

Councilor Soriano Mendoza, chair of the environment committee, said the mining firm’s proposal is on its field-based investigation (FBI) stage, according to the processes prescribed by IPRA.

According to Tublay officials, MTL is now processing its application with the Mines and Geo-sciences Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (MGB-DENR). It is allegedly 99 percent foreign-owned.

MGB records show that MTL applied for an exploration permit, Expa 76, on Feb.13, 2006 for an area measuring 5,845 hectares in Bokod, Atok and Tublay. It intends to explore ore deposits for copper, gold, silver, lead and zinc.

MGB personnel confirmed the said exploration permit application has been endorsed to the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) for its processes. He also said Expa 76 is now for posting, publication and broadcasting and its area status clearance is under appeal with the undersecretary for Mining and Legal Affairs of the DENR.

NCIP Cordillera Regional Director Amador Batay-an confirmed having received the MTL applications for a free, prior informed consent of indigenous peoples in the three Benguet towns but said his office is still awaiting further evaluation.

“No action was asked of us that we did not act on the proposal,” said Lauro. Paoad said he would study it as soon as he gets a copy of the mining proposal.

Tublay, predominantly an agricultural town, is also the site of the former Sto. Niño mines, which closed down in the early 1970s after massive open-pit mine operations depleted the site’s mineral and water resources. Philex Mining Corporation owns the rights to the former mines.

MTL has an aborted exploration project in Quezon, Nueva Vizcaya which Brgy. Runruno residents have continuously opposed. It has sued several Nueva Vizcaya officials and residents taking an anti-mining stance. Northern Dispatch / (Bulatlat.com)

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