More sectors join bid for copper mining in South Cotabato

KORONADAL CITY, Philippines — More sectors have joined the bandwagon of local communities seeking imprimatur from the South Cotabato provincial government to extract copper from Blaan ancestral lands nearby.

The South Cotabato Sangguniang Panlalawigan is presently initiating consultations on mounting public clamors for its members to lift a longtime anti-open pit mining ordinance in the province.

Ethnic Blaan and T’boli datus have earlier passed manifestos urging the South Cotabato SP to repeal the ordinance for thousands of indigenous people to benefit from the copper deposits in South Cotabato’s Tampakan town, touted as the largest in Asia.

Victor Villa, owner of the Mang Gorio chain of restaurants here and in Cotabato City, told reporters Saturday he and many friends in the local business community are anticipating an economic boom around if copper mining in Tampakan is permitted.

“We want that to proceed so that the Blaan people there will prosper. Surely, that will also usher in tremendous improvements in South Cotabato’s business climate,” Villa said.

Villa said the now 24-year Indigenous Peoples Rights Act empowers the Blaan and T’bolis to decide on how to manage and utilize obtainable natural resources in their ancestral domains.

Nornie Demerin, a mother of four and a senior official of the Kanami Koronadal Farmers and Fisherfolk Association, said Saturday their group wants the anti-open-pit mining ordinance covering all towns in South Cotabato lifted immediately.

“It is all about responsible mining and we believe that the Blaan and T’boli communities, along with the Tampakan local government unit and the South Cotabato provincial government shall make that happen,” Demerin said.

Tampakan town is only about 14 kilometers from this city, which is the capital of South Cotabato.

Blaan tribal datus and baes, or women who are also community leaders, together urged last October 20, during a traditional gathering in Tampakan, the members of the South Cotabato SP to allow them to extract copper from their ancestral domains.

Joseph Tolentino, a community leader in Barangay New Pangasinan here, said Saturday a mining operation in Tampakan will generate employment for thousands of South Cotabato residents and raise huge revenues for the provincial government.

“Bigger tax collections by the Tampakan local government unit and the South Cotabato provincial government means more socio-economic projects for the people,” Tolentino, chairperson of their barangay’s committee on agriculture, said.

In a statement Friday, officials of different irrigators organizations here, whose members are farmers engaged in rice farming, said they are in favor, too, of allowing extraction of copper in Tampakan.

Elvis Villaray, vice chairman of the Topland Communal Irrigators Association, said they can compel the Blaan tribal councils and the mining firm that would operate in Tampakan to provide them irrigation facilities as corporate social responsibility projects.

“We have been experiencing for a longtime now an annoying lack of water to irrigate thousands of hectares of rice farms near Tampakan. We can have a dam there to direct the flow of rivers there to rice farms downstream, in Koronadal City and in municipalities around,” Villaray said.

The South Cotabato SP is expected to wind up before yearend with its consultations on proposals to lift the provincial anti-open pit mining law.

Thousands of Blaans, meanwhile, are making their common wish for the repeal of the ordinance felt by the South Cotabato SP via continuing dialogues, subject to anti-COVID-19 protocols, in towns in South Cotabato and in its capital, Koronadal City.