By Ellen Red Inside Mindanao, Published in Mindanao Monitor
1 November
2006
Dumingag, Zamboanga Del Sur - Reforestation was promised by logging
companies to the people in this town. This never happened.
This time, with
the promise of responsible mining of TVI Minerals Processing, Inc., the people
in this town are wary; while others are downright saying not to the planned entry
of the mining company.
"Based on our experience, the areas that were
destroyed by logging never again regained its former appearance and state. What
more with mining where the mountain itself will be destroyed?"
Written
in the dialect, this is the common sentiment contained in the many letters sent
by the people of this town to Constancio Paye Jr., region IX director of the Mines
and Geosciences Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The letters signed by both the Subanon. The ethnic group in this town, and settlers
from neighboring provinces, added.
"As the logging companies did not
fulfill the reforestation agreement as stated on the Timber License Agreement
(TLA), the same thing would happen with the mining company. They could never bring
back the soil of the mountains that they would destroy, flatten, and dig."
A
TLA is a privilege granted by the State to a company to utilize forest resources
within forestlands with the obligation to develop, protect, and rehabilitate those
resources.
In the year 2002, the municipal government of Dumingag released
a document saying that as a "consequence of illegal logging and widely practiced
kaingin (slash and burn) system of farming, the forest classified as timberlands
have been reduced to mere forest patches".
TVI Mineral processing,
Inc., an affiliate of a Canadian Mining Company TVI Pacific Inc., filed before
the regional office of Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) -Department of Environment
and Natural Resources (DENR) two exploration permits for exploration of gold,
copper, silver, and other associated metallic mineral resources in three barangays
in this town: namely Dapiwak, Dilud, and Lipawan; covering a total of 13,446 hectares.
Republic
Act 7942 otherwise known as the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, defines exploration
as the searching or prospecting for minerals resources by geological, geochemical
or geophysical surveys, remote sensing, test pitting, trending, drilling, shaft
sinking, tunneling, or any other means for the purpose of determining of determining
the existence, extent, quantity and quality thereof and the feasibility of mining
them for profit."
Teofila Tumalis, a Subanon residing in barangay Dilud,
Dumingag, told Inside Mindanao in her dialect. "The tribe here agreed that
we would not allow the entry (of TVI Minerals Processing, Inc.). Because our crops
will be destroyed. We will not able to till our land."
