BEN SERRANO
Contributing editor
CLAVER, SURIGAO DEL NORTE—Fed up from what they claimed as continuing failure of the mining firms’ to pay royalty fees and long over due promised of corporate social responsibilities, displaced Mamanwa tribesmen in their letter sought assistance from Surigao del Norte Provincial Police Office that they will impose no entry in their ancestral lands.
They asked police protection as they seek their rights and imposed of what they described rightful and legal means as they assert their ownership of their ancestral lands now being used by mining firms.
There are no official replies so far from the PNP and LGU officials furnished by the lumad letters so far as occurences of violence are feared in the barricade.
In their letter to Surigao del Norte Police Provincial Director P/Supt. Ramil Perlas and to Bureau of Mines and Geo-Sciences Regional Director Alilio Ensomo dated Dec. 2, 2008, they claimed they will install checkpoints within their ancestral lands to prevent ingress and egress to and from their ancestral lands.
Signed by Mamanwa tribal chieftains Datu Reynante Buklas and Datu Alfredo Olorico who claimed they have more than 1,500 tribal members who will participate in the barricade scheduled tomorrow, in their letter furnished also to other LGU officials, said they were forced to use provisions in the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) which allow them not to allow entry of mining firms and others who refused to respect and recognize their rights over ancestral lands.
“We are using this last resort since these mining firms keep on promising to us since 2006 and until now but failed to deliver, we felt we are being neglected by the NCIP and the Bureau of Mines” Datu Reynante Buklas told this writer in an interview.
Said Mamanwa tribesmen claimed out of the four mining firms operating within their 48,678 hectares ancestral lands covered by Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title issued by the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) which is under the Office of the President of the Republic of the Philippines only one, the Taganito Mining Corporation (TMC) have signed a memorandum of agreement with them.
But lawyers hired by philantrophist Engr. Sergio Pascual of Butuan City who is helping the Mamanwa tribesmen to seek justice claimed the Memorandum of Agreement the Mamanwa tribesmen had signed with Taganito Mining Corporation was unacceptable, one-sided and do not follow Indigenous People’s laws.
Lawyer Roldan Torralba claimed the agreement was not written in language understandable to the Mamanwas, second, it only give Mamanwas including affected host communities P500,000.00 a year instead of a one percent royalty fees derived the mining company’s gross annual income.
The one percent provision under IPRA law is the minimum benefit the indigenous people will get in exchange of mining, cutting trees in their ancestral lands including of them being displaced to pave way for the mining operations of the mining firms, one of them is Taganito Mining Corporation who have been operating in their ancestral lands since 1960’s.
Taganito Mining Corporation officials in their letter to the Mamanwas claimed they are willing to pay them only from 2006, the year they signed an agreement, to present and willing to renegotiate the MOA.
Other mining firms operating in their ancestral lands, Datu Reynante Buklas claimed are Platinum Group Mining Company (PGMC) owned by the Ataydes, Oriental Synergy Mining Corporation (OSMC) and Case Mining Company.
Under the Mamanwa issued CADT, the areas under their ancestral domain covers municipalities of Tubod, Placer, Gigaquit and Claver. Majority of these areas have rich deposits of minerals ranging from gold, nickel, copper and other ores.
Earlier, Caraga Indigenous People’s groups have asked the DENR and President Arroyo to cancel all mining permits of the more than thirty mining firms in the region operating within their ancestral lands for continuing failure of these mining firms to heed for their calls, recognize IP rights and pay the one percent royalty fees.
The lumad groups have blamed government agencies like NCIP and MGB for failure to help them in asserting their rights and welfare instead as if allegedly lawyering or acting as middlemen or fixers to the detriment of their interests.
They also hit the divide and rule tactics now hounding lumad groups to muddle the real issue hounding indigenous people in Caraga Region.
Contributing editor
CLAVER, SURIGAO DEL NORTE—Fed up from what they claimed as continuing failure of the mining firms’ to pay royalty fees and long over due promised of corporate social responsibilities, displaced Mamanwa tribesmen in their letter sought assistance from Surigao del Norte Provincial Police Office that they will impose no entry in their ancestral lands.
They asked police protection as they seek their rights and imposed of what they described rightful and legal means as they assert their ownership of their ancestral lands now being used by mining firms.
There are no official replies so far from the PNP and LGU officials furnished by the lumad letters so far as occurences of violence are feared in the barricade.
In their letter to Surigao del Norte Police Provincial Director P/Supt. Ramil Perlas and to Bureau of Mines and Geo-Sciences Regional Director Alilio Ensomo dated Dec. 2, 2008, they claimed they will install checkpoints within their ancestral lands to prevent ingress and egress to and from their ancestral lands.
Signed by Mamanwa tribal chieftains Datu Reynante Buklas and Datu Alfredo Olorico who claimed they have more than 1,500 tribal members who will participate in the barricade scheduled tomorrow, in their letter furnished also to other LGU officials, said they were forced to use provisions in the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) which allow them not to allow entry of mining firms and others who refused to respect and recognize their rights over ancestral lands.
“We are using this last resort since these mining firms keep on promising to us since 2006 and until now but failed to deliver, we felt we are being neglected by the NCIP and the Bureau of Mines” Datu Reynante Buklas told this writer in an interview.
Said Mamanwa tribesmen claimed out of the four mining firms operating within their 48,678 hectares ancestral lands covered by Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title issued by the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) which is under the Office of the President of the Republic of the Philippines only one, the Taganito Mining Corporation (TMC) have signed a memorandum of agreement with them.
But lawyers hired by philantrophist Engr. Sergio Pascual of Butuan City who is helping the Mamanwa tribesmen to seek justice claimed the Memorandum of Agreement the Mamanwa tribesmen had signed with Taganito Mining Corporation was unacceptable, one-sided and do not follow Indigenous People’s laws.
Lawyer Roldan Torralba claimed the agreement was not written in language understandable to the Mamanwas, second, it only give Mamanwas including affected host communities P500,000.00 a year instead of a one percent royalty fees derived the mining company’s gross annual income.
The one percent provision under IPRA law is the minimum benefit the indigenous people will get in exchange of mining, cutting trees in their ancestral lands including of them being displaced to pave way for the mining operations of the mining firms, one of them is Taganito Mining Corporation who have been operating in their ancestral lands since 1960’s.
Taganito Mining Corporation officials in their letter to the Mamanwas claimed they are willing to pay them only from 2006, the year they signed an agreement, to present and willing to renegotiate the MOA.
Other mining firms operating in their ancestral lands, Datu Reynante Buklas claimed are Platinum Group Mining Company (PGMC) owned by the Ataydes, Oriental Synergy Mining Corporation (OSMC) and Case Mining Company.
Under the Mamanwa issued CADT, the areas under their ancestral domain covers municipalities of Tubod, Placer, Gigaquit and Claver. Majority of these areas have rich deposits of minerals ranging from gold, nickel, copper and other ores.
Earlier, Caraga Indigenous People’s groups have asked the DENR and President Arroyo to cancel all mining permits of the more than thirty mining firms in the region operating within their ancestral lands for continuing failure of these mining firms to heed for their calls, recognize IP rights and pay the one percent royalty fees.
The lumad groups have blamed government agencies like NCIP and MGB for failure to help them in asserting their rights and welfare instead as if allegedly lawyering or acting as middlemen or fixers to the detriment of their interests.
They also hit the divide and rule tactics now hounding lumad groups to muddle the real issue hounding indigenous people in Caraga Region.