Philippines: with 5 Members Missing, the Mamanwa Hold Strong

Feb­ru­ary 12, 2009
At least 400 mem­bers of the Maman­wa tribe in Suri­gao del Sur, north­west­ern Min­danao, are in their sec­ond week of a block­ade against four min­ing com­pa­nies: Tagan­i­to Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (TMC), Ori­en­tal Syn­er­gy Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (OSMC), Case Min­ing Com­pa­ny (CMC) and Plat­inum Group Min­ing Com­pa­ny (PGMC).

The Maman­wa pre­vi­ous­ly sent notices of ter­mi­na­tion to the com­pa­nies, inform­ing them that they will longer be per­mit­ted to mine their ances­tral ter­ri­to­ries because the com­pa­nies have nev­er paid them any roy­al­ty fees.

Under the Indige­nous Peo­ples Rights Act (IPRA), Indige­nous Peo­ple in the Philip­pines are enti­tled to “a roy­al­ty pay­ment… which shall not be less than 1% of the Gross Out­put of the min­ing oper­a­tions in the area.”

Only recent­ly has the Maman­wa learned of this.

In a state­ment dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 4, day sev­en of the bar­ri­cade, Datu Joel Buk­las from the Tagan­i­to Maman­wa Asso­ci­a­tion, notes that TMC has been oper­at­ing in the region since the 1960s, and recent­ly “got a new con­tract to oper­ate for anoth­er 25 years in the red moun­tain of Suri­gao del Sur.”

“The mov­ing truck loads of nick­el ore is a reg­u­lar scene for motorist pass­ing along the Claver high­way.”

“Lit­er­al­ly, the red moun­tain of Claver is mov­ing inch by inch every day. Sum­it­o­mo Met­al Min­ing Com­pa­ny togeth­er with TMC planned to start this year the con­struc­tion of a 30,000 ton-a-year smelt­ing plant which would start its oper­a­tion by 2012.” Mean­while, Sum­it­o­mo is “deter­mined to start the con­struc­tion this year of the one-bil­lion dol­lar project.”

“This is our land even before these min­ing com­pa­nies came, we were already here, we were forcibly oust­ed from these lands against our will and we hope con­cerned gov­ern­ment agen­cies whom we have been ask­ing for years will wake up.”

“Today, 4 Feb­ru­ary 2009, is our sev­enth day of human bar­ri­cade along the high­way of Tagan­i­to, Claver, Suri­gao del Norte to demand before the Nation­al Com­mis­sion on Indige­nous Peo­ples (NCIP) on our share agreed for allow­ing the min­ing com­pa­nies to ruin our lives and our ances­tral domain.”
SURFACE THE MAMANWA FIVE

With the block­ade still stand­ing, the Maman­wa report that five of their car­pen­ters, who helped put the block­ade togeth­er, have been miss­ing since they left the site to har­vest food for the pro­test­ers on Jan­u­ary 29.

Nobody knows what hap­pened to them, how­ev­er the Maman­wa point out that in Decem­ber they informed the Philip­pine Nation­al Police, the local gov­ern­ment and the NCIP that a block­ade was in the works – “after repeat­ed attempts of send­ing out notices of ter­mi­na­tion of min­ing oper­a­tions as well as demands for just com­pen­sa­tion proved futile,” says a Feb­ru­ary 12 state­ment from the Legal Rights and Nat­ur­al Resources Cen­ter – Kasama sa Kalikasan/­FOE- Philip­pines (LRC-KsK).

The LRC-KsK is call­ing upon the Arroyo gov­ern­ment “to exert all its efforts in locat­ing the five IP pro­test­ers and put to jus­tice who­ev­er caused their dis­ap­pear­ance,” and that “the Arroyo gov­ern­ment do away with its obses­sion for min­ing gen­er­at­ed rev­enues in the face of over­whelm­ing rejec­tion of IP com­mu­ni­ties who have long borne the brunt of the destruc­tion, dis­place­ment, dis­crim­i­na­tion and dis­em­pow­er­ment that min­ing oper­a­tions bring with it.”

They also request that peo­ple take a moment to Call on the gov­ern­ment:

* To sur­face the five miss­ing Maman­was;
* To respect and pro­tect the bar­ri­cade of the Mamanwt;
* To scrap the Philip­pine Min­ing Act of 1995; and
* To make sure that min­ing com­pa­nies in Maman­wa ances­tral domain respect indige­nous peo­ples rights, give just com­pen­sa­tion to the Maman­wa com­mu­ni­ty and stop all min­ing oper­a­tion.

You can send your appeals to:

The Chief of Police
Chief Direc­tor Gen­er­al Jesus Ver­zosa
Philip­pine Nation­al Police
Email: pio@pnp.gov

The Chief of Staff (Armed Forces)
Gen. Alexan­der B. Yano
Chief of Staff, Armed Forces of the Philip­pines
Email: via web­site: http://www.afp.mil.ph/ghq/csafp/index.htm (fol­low link on left-hand side to guest­book)

The Sec­re­tary of the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources
Jose “Lito” L. Atien­za, Jr
Email: web@denr.gov
Email add: osec@denr.gov

The Mines and Gosciences Bureau Region­al Direc­tor – Region 13
ALILO C. ENSOMO, JR.
e‑mail: mgbrxiii@philcom. ph

With copies to:

The Chair­per­son of the Philip­pines Com­mis­sion on Human Rights
Email: drpvq@chr.gov, atty_delima@yahoo.com

The Chair­per­son of the Nation­al Com­mis­sion on Indige­nous Peo­ples
Atty. Euge­nio A. Insigne
Email: resource@ncip. gov.ph