BAKUN, Benguet —- Hundreds of concerned villagers here have assailed a recent ruling of the central office of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) which declared that Royalco Philippines did not violate the rule on the conduct of consultations with the affected indigenous peoples for it conducted mining explorations in Barangay Gambang here.
The group, which called itself the Bakun Aywanan, said the residents of sitios in Gambang where the company will conduct the third phase of its mining exploration had earlier rejected the issuance of a free and prior informed consent for the mining activity because there was alleged manipulation in the decision-making process.
The group hit the company for choosing elders as the representatives of the community.
Furthermore, the villagers said, the NCIP was involved in the manipulation, and so the issue was elevated to the central office.
However, an investigating team composed of lawyers ruled that there was no rule violated by the Cordillera NCIP office in the conduct of the FPIC process.
Although there were two resolutions passed by the affected communities rejecting the Royalco mining exploration, the Cordillera NCIP said that not all barangay officials affixed their signatures, and this cast doubt over the validity of the document.
On the rejection of the exploration at Sitios Mabuhay, Gold Star, Mugao, and Batanes, the NCIP said these communities are not part of the area covered by the exploration activities.
Moreover, the certificates of rejection by Sitios Bagtangan, Tacayan, Liwang, and Bolbolo were not considered by the NCIP because the documents did not conform with the required format. The rejection of Sitio Nametbet is under question because the signatories were not validated.
Royalco intends to explore at least 5,400 hectares of supposedly mineral-rich areas in Bakun, Kibungan and Mankayan, Benguet in preparation for the opening of a large-scale mining operation.
The people opposing the on-going activities of the company vowed to continue the fight against mining which, they said, could ruin tthe environment.
Also, they do not want to suffer the fate of other mining communities in the province which had not benefited from the extraction of tons of high-grade ores.
They said that the large-scale mining operation will surely affect the livelihood of the people because their farms would be owned by the company and their sources of potable water would be affected and eventually depleted.