Blaans want copper, gold extraction in Tampakan sooner than expected

KORONADAL CITY --- For Blaan leaders, only with the extraction of copper and gold in Tampakan, South Cotabato and nearby towns can the tribe rise from poverty and underdevelopment. 

“Let us mine freely these lands in our ancestral domain that are rich in copper and gold,” Bae Dalena Samling, figurehead of the tribal council in Barangay Danlag in Tampakan town in South Cotabato, said Wednesday.

The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, or NCIP, released last week to the tribal council during a gathering on October 28 in Barangay Danlag in Tampakan a Certificate of Precondition allowing the Sagittarius Mining, Inc. to mine for copper and gold in mountain ranges in the municipality.

The document also covers mineral-rich barangays in towns around Tampakan that are inside the territories of the adjoining Sarangani, Sultan Kudarat and Davao del Sur provinces.

“Finally, after a long almost endless wait. It is a dream come true,” lawyer Jesus Dureza, a former presidential adviser on the peace process said, referring to the NCIP’s Certificate of Precondition.

Dureza was a former consultant of the Sagittarius Mining, Inc., more known as the SMI, the firm that Blaans want to extract copper and gold in their tribal enclaves.

Samling said it is the Blaan community that should approve or disapprove of copper mining in their ancestral homelands based on the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act, or Republic Act 8371, that explicitly gave them and other indigenous communities in the country a “self-ascription” privilege.

“These are our homelands since time immemorial. Let us decide on how we would want these lands to rise from neglect, poverty and underdevelopment,” Samling said.

Blaan tribal leaders manifested support one after another for the extraction of copper and gold in their highland enclaves by the SMI during a gathering on October 28 in Barangay Danlag.

The event was attended by employees of the NCIP-12 led by their regional director, Michael Mamukid.

Benefactors have earmarked US$5.9 billion for the development of the mine fields in Tampakan and for other socio-economic and humanitarian interventions needed to improve living conditions in impoverished Bl’aan territories.

“The IPRA law provides opportunities to our marginalized indigenous sectors to realize their right to self-determination,” a senior SMI executive, Joselito Kakilala, said.

Kakilala, a retired Army general, said the NCIP’s award of the Certificate of Precondition, or CP, allowing the extraction of copper and gold in Tampakan and neighboring towns is the solution to the poverty gripping the Blaans for so long.

The Blaan homelands in Tampakan and nearby barangays in the provinces of Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and Davao del Sur reputedly have the richest copper and gold deposits in all of Asia.

Hadja Bai Naila Mamalinta, barangay chairwoman of Datalblao in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat, said they are anticipating the massive development of Blaan territories once the SMI operates.

Mamalinta said the Tampakan mining project is favored by the Blaans in Salnaong area in her barangay, where the SMI is also to operate.

“We are wishing for that operation of the SMI to happen soon,” Mamalinta said.

Tribal chieftains told reporters during the NCIP’s symbolic release of the one-page CP in Barangay Danlag last October 28 that they are grateful to the SMI for having distributed vehicles for their barangay governments, built roads and health facilities even before it can start operating.

The SMI also has provided college education to hundreds of Blaans through a scholarship program, according to Samling.

Samling and key members of the tribal council in Barangay Danlag said the SMI already spent P260 million for various community development projects in Bl’aan lands that have vast deposits of copper and gold.