KIBLAWAN, DAVAO DEL SUR – Frustration has gone beyond boiling point in a bucolic tribal community here where guns have become the norm rather than the exception.

Circled by mountains and shrouded by an eerie calmness, Bong Mal is an enclave of B’laan tribesmen most of whom cannot read and write, nor speak or understand the dialect of the lowlanders.

On a clear day, thick rolling greenery (giant trees, grasses, corn fields) sways to the breeze as far as the eyes can see. The night is unusually cold, cricket sounds fill the air, fireflies twinkle around treetops.

Deep into the jungle, Bong Mal in Barangay Kimlawis can be reached through a two-hour trek off treacherous dirt roads from the town proper. It is a prospective copper and gold producer.

But not everything has not been going on fine in this tribal community, where wielding a gun has been traditionally considered a “way of life and a badge of honor.” Tempers have gone out of control —- with blood already staining the ground and
voices of discontent flowing out strong like the current of a nearby river.

“I shot a militiaman to death a few months back,” said 18-year-old Joel Saluli, an improvised shotgun beside him. “I was disgusted because they promised me a job and it did not come. They did give jobs, but those who benefited were not us but those from outside our community.”

The young man was with two other teenage tribesmen when the crime took place. They have since been hiding in the vast jungle whose terrain they know like the palm of their hands.

Saluli, who came out under the cover of darkness, appeared unrepentant. Before the shooting, the young man narrated, he was arrested by soldiers for barricading the road out of disgust over the desecration of his elders’ tomb. He was later released.

All it took was a bulldozer and the hallowed ground was gone, he lamented, adding that it was done without his family’s prior consent. He laid the blame on mining firm Sagittarius Mines, Inc., which is exploring Bong Mal for copper and gold deposits.

The village is part of the so-called Tampakan project of Sagittarius, which owns mining rights straddling the towns of Tampakan in South Cotabato and Columbio in Sultan Kudarat. The mines development site covers five tribal communities.

Sagittarius’ drilling activities have focused on Bong Mal since last year following the raid by the communist New People’s Army (NPA) on the company’s base camp in Barangay Tablu, Tampakan. No one was killed in the incident but at least P12 million
worth of equipment was burned.

At the heart of Barangay Kimlawis where Bong Mal belongs, a company base camp now stands, fenced with barbed wire and teeming with private security guards.

This once quiet village is now roaring with the sound of heavy equipment like payloaders, bulldozers, road rollers (pison), and tractors.

It has also become a “showroom” of the latest pickup truck models like D-Max, Frontier, and Strada. At any given time, at least 30 of them reportedly cruise the development site.

Bong Mal natives see only one beneficial effect of the mining firm’s operation so far: the opening of roads, which have allowed the B’laans to transport more easily their products, mostly corn, to trading centers in the lowlands.

With Sagittarius’ presence, the mountains here have become a land of more and more guns, taking into exception the weapons long in the hands of the tribesmen. Aside from the company’s security guards, soldiers and militiamen under Task Force Kitaco have been deployed here.

Earlier, the mayors of the three towns within the mines development site agreed to institutionalize the Kiblawan-Tampakan-Columbio (Kitaco) Growth Area that would draw up their common economic road map. The Kitaco Growth Area initiative has the support of Sagittarius. Task Force Kitaco’s role was to keep peace and protect the community from attacks from NPA rebels and not as protectors solely of Sagittarius, as critics charged. Whatever the reason, the scenario
these days is that wherever the mining firm’s facilities are, military detachments are just a stone’s throw away.

“That’s been the case here. If soldiers are not in front, they are at the back of the company as the mining firm carries out its activities,” said B’laan leader Pilo Capion. A former supporter of the company, having worked for it as part of the community
relations staff, he’s now waging an opposition drive —- recently siding with the local Catholic Church —- to boot out the company from their community.

The 28-year-old husband of two wives and father of five children cited several instances when soldiers forced tribesmen to clear their area to give way to access roads to the firm’s drilling activities.

“Some of us were not informed by the company that they would bulldoze our lands to serve as access roads. We’d only find about it later,” said Capion, who killed a man in his younger years and suffered for it in prison.

Lairan Jantin, Capion’s grandfather, said it would be better for Sagittarius to pull out from their village. “The company’s here in our community, but those benefiting are from the outside. They better go away.”

He said the tribal elders were promised the heavens when the mining company came in several years ago so they gave their consent to the firm’s plans. But he claimed they were not told about the project’s ill effects —- such as, they would be uprooted from their communities because the mountains would be turned upside down.

Dagil Capion, Pilo Capion’s younger brother, said the money the company would give them in exchange for their lands would eventually be drained.

“Here in the mountains, we can live even without money. Everything here is basically free. The presence of the mining company is doing more bad than good to our community. They should respect us if we don’t want them anymore,” Dagil said.

Like Pilo, Dagil also experienced working at Sagittarius, an indication that, observers say, the two have weight in the community hierarchy. Several other tribal members tell stories of manipulation, intimidation, and deceit that “only vultures could bring to a tribe stuck in poverty and ignorance for so long.”

One common message they have is for Sagittarius to now back off. Fr. Romeo Q. Catedral, social action director of the Diocese of Marbel, was appalled by what he found out after visiting Bong Mal recently.

“What we saw and heard were just terrible. [We learned] that though they gave their consent before to Sagittarius, they didn’t know that the company [would] turn their area upside [down],” the priest said.

“They never understood what large-scale mining was all about and would have never allowed the mining company if they were told in the first place,” the priest noted.

MINING FIRM’S SIDE

Grace A. Ganchero, Sagittarius manager for corporate community and sustainability department, admitted there’s growing discontent among the tribesmen in Bong Mal regarding the company’s presence.

But she played it down as the result of a “tribal leadership crisis.” Ganchero also denied the military is serving mainly the company.

“Based on our business principle, we cannot do that —- threaten people and use the military to advance our interest,” she said in a recent meeting with religious leaders in Koronadal City.

John B. Arnaldo, Sagittarius corporate communications manager, stressed in that meeting that “respect for human rights is very important to us.” He gave assurances that if the tribe in Bong Mal says no to the company’s operation, “we’ll respect it.”

Based on the latest study of Sagittarius, estimated resources are at least 2.4 billion tons at a grade of 0.6% copper and 0.2 grams per ton gold; and 13.5 million tons of copper and 15.8 million ounces of gold, using a 0.3% copper cut-off grade.

The new estimate is 8% higher than the 2007 estimate of 2.2 billion tons at 0.6% copper, using the same cut-off grade. This makes the Tampakan project the one of the largest undeveloped copper deposits in Southeast Asia. But it seems the glittering treasure is no longer attractive to the tribe in Bong Mal.

Romer S. Sarmiento is a BusinessWorld corrspondent in Mindanao, based in Koronadal City.