[Press Release] Digos, Davao del Sur – Tampakan mining project’s impending displacement and relocation of 2, 600 IP families tantamount to death – B’laans

Digos, Davao del Sur – Tampakan mining project’s impending displacement and relocation of 2, 600 IP families tantamount to death – B’laans Following the blocked entry of the church and human rights groups led fact-finding and solidarity mission to Bong Mal, Tampakan South cotabato 25 of the more than a thousand B’laan natives awaiting the…

Human Rights Online Philippines

May 1, 2012

7–10 minutes

Bongmal, Davao del Sur, Kiblawan Davao del Sur, Mining, SMI, South Cotabato, Tampakan South Cotabato, Visayan

Digos, Davao del Sur – Tampakan mining project’s impending displacement and relocation of 2, 600 IP families tantamount to death – B’laans

Following the blocked entry of the church and human rights groups led fact-finding and solidarity mission to Bong Mal, Tampakan South cotabato 25 of the more than a thousand B’laan natives awaiting the arrival of the team in Bong Mal, managed to get past the barricades in Kiblawan davao del Sur to meet the fact-finding team in Digos town last April 26, 2012.

Earlier, iron pipe barricades were set up by hand-held radio equipped locals and scholarship grantees of SMI at Pulang Bato, Tampakan, the first gateway to Bong Mal, the actual site of the proposed 500 hectare-wide open-pit of the mining project. A woman who earlier identified herself as the barangay’s bookkeeper restrained the barricaders on giving any more information.

In their traditional garbs and with faces still weary from the 3-hour road travel aboard hired motorcycles and lack of sleep the night before, men and women Blaan elders, young mothers with their infants, middle-aged adults and adolescents laid down mats on the floor to squat on for the focus group discussion with the fact-finding team at the multi-purpose hall of the San Isidro Labrador Parish in this town.

In their native tongue, translated in Visayan and Filipino by local translator, the B’laans recounted stories and testimonies on the situation besetting their communities in the first quarter of this year, every now and then retracing past or earlier events related to the Tampakan mining project of Sagittarius Mines.

Liah Capion, An elder woman told the team of her anguish and pain of having lost her sons since her family staunchly opposed the mining’s entry into their once peaceful communities. One has been imprisoned and the other three sons declared by the military as outlaws and fugitives. Life has never been the same to her and her family since then. She along with the other fellow B’laans have witnessed and fallen victims to physical and psychological violence wrought upon them by military elements who carried out demolition of houses, makeshift warehouse where they keep their farm produce, and destroyed their crops.

“ Takot na kami pumunta ng kagubatan para manguha ng pagkain namin simula nuong pinagbawalan na ang mga lalaki pumunta doon (we are afraid to go to the forest anymore to fetch food since it has been prohibited) “ said one of the younger men who is somehow able to express in Filipino. “Takot kami lalo na sa nakita naming na kapag tutol ka sa mina, yung mga military na lumalakad sa gilid-gilid para mag patrol, manghuhuli at ma charge kami na NPA ( we are afraid because if we are caught by the soldiers on foot patrol, they can just charge us NPA/rebels) ” , he added in broken Filipino.

One of the women , holding back tears lamented the injustice that she and her family suffered. She questioned the fact that her husband who was then wanted by the military ,despite already arrested and under military custody, was still killed last December 5, 2011 during an operation as claimed by the military. She said that images of her helpless husband still haunt her to this date.

Another B’laan woman narrated that last January 13, in search of her now fugitive husband who she says was one of those who actively barricaded against the mining project , police personnel raided her small abode , divested them of their few belongings such as iron pots and pillows, terrorized her children when in their presence, the police threatened to arrest her also, should she not reveal her husband’s whereabouts.

Still other stories freely came out , of a young man’s parents accidentally ran over by bulldozers undertaking a road widening, of houses in the way of the road expansion being demolished and crops destroyed, of the entire village prohibited by SMI and the military to construct new huts or abodes, of an imposition of a curfew, of disallowing the male members of the community to go to the forests to gather food, hunt and farm, of women to have to seek the permission of the military detachment and being assigned time limit when they go to the forests to perform tasks and roles which the men are already unable to do because of the imposed restraints, of SMI notices posted in their houses last march 21, setting march 23 as cut out period for them to enlist in something totally incomprehensible as many of them couldn’t write and read and had to rely on others to explain and translate to them in their native language the information in the posted notices which were in Bisayan.

“They beat up, hurt and kill our men then outlaws those who hide away or stand up against them, threatens our women and children, they control and limit our movements, access to our communal resources, prohibits our natural way of life” the mother of the now fugitive sons bemoaned.

It disturbed them also that attempts to complain and bring to the attention of their village chieftain the said excesses, the only response that they get from their barangay captain is to be told that they have no rights anymore over their lands as it is public domain anyway. This, they say is totally an unacceptable explanation since Bong Mal is their ancestral domain, and it is a common known fact.

As aggrieved parties, they reiterated that they are not even after payment or indemnification anymore. They just want SMI out from their ancestral domains. An elder man said “ if other communities wants SMI in their area, let them and we will respect that, but the mining company should not force their mining operations into communities who doesn’t want them, such as Bong Mal.”

Most of the gathered B’laans agreed to the thoughts expressed by several of them that the present conflict and rift between and among B’laan communities and clans caused by the mining issue can be resolved if only they will be left by themselves to settle and bridge the divide based on their customary laws and beliefs. “This is not possible as long as 7 military detachments are in our midst and SMI personnel meddles and worst, employ deceptions and manipulations to fan even more the conflict that they created in the first place,” said an elder B’laan man.

A teenage B’laan girl who was silent and was just listening intently for the most part of the exchanges opened up in a chant-like tone about her fears and feelings on the present situation that befell her community and her people. “
There’s not many of us B’laans anymore left in this world, If SMI will really force its way and its mining operations in our community , its like vanishing half of our race us B’laans, because by their doing, we are made to fight and turn against each other. It is the children like us who will suffer the most and I fear this will all lead to pangayao (tribal war) if they will not stop“ the young B’laan uttered in native vernacular.

Most of those in the group were in unison in agreeing to an elder woman ventilating that they are being driven away from their ancestral lands. “ They are forcing this mining on us and sending us away. But we have nowhere else to go. Not in the resettlement area where they want us relocated. When our lands are taken from us, and us, plucked away from our land, its like they have killed us already, its like death itself to us B’laans”

Meanwhile, in wrapping up the focus group discussion, Bishop Afable of the Diocese of Digos said that in the 3 years that he has followed the developments related to the Tampakan mining issue , it was only after personally having listened to the stories of the B’laans gathered that day in the diocese’s auspices that he truly understood himself the social impacts of the Tampakan mining project to the the natives of the area, “which goes beyond economic valuation and economic benefits claims by the mining company, the local and national government units supporting and aggressively pushing for it “ the bishop said.

Tampakan Forum last year, had already pointed out in its critic of SMI’s Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) document submitted to the Environmental Bureau of Management (EMB) for review that mitigation in the form of a Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) fails to appreciate the unique cultural identity of the B’laan, and merely enumerates standard social development interventions . The ESIA fail to understand and truly take into account the interplay between the Blaans, their culture, knowledge and interaction with their environment is critical.

The Tampakan project is set to dislocate an estimated 2,600 families or 4,000 individuals , mostly or 3,000 individuals belonging to the B’laan in the mines development site that straddles 3 overlapping CADTS (Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titles ) and 1 CADC (Certificate of Ancestral Domain Certificate ) belonging to the B’laan communities covering about 74% or 7,095 of the 10,000 has of the proposed mine site.

Tampakan Forum is a technical working group on the Tampakan mining issue convened by the Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc. Anti-Mining Campaign (PMPI) in collaboration with Social Action Marbel, Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), Philippine Association for Intercultural Development (PAFID), Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Friends of Earth Philippines (LRC-KSK), Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links (PIPLINKS) and the London Working Group on Mining in the Philippines and IUCN CESP-SEAPRISE.

Press Release, 30 April 2012