Gold mining pits indigenous women vs. indigenous women

SIOCON, ZAMBOANGA DEL NORTE – Even as the recent assault on the town center by rebels have been quelled by military troops here, a more deeply-rooted tension threatens the peace of this former 17th-century mission settlement, about 109 kilometers from Zamboanga City in southern Philippines.

All claiming they prefer building peace to sowing war among themselves, Subanen residents are pitted against each other as open-pit mining begins on the gold-rich hills of sitio Canatuan, barangay Tabayo, about 30 kilometers from the poblacion.

The Arroyo government’s new policy supportive of and encouraging mining investments has only added fire to the decade-old conflict that has caught the Subanen, particularly the women, in the crossfire, or even in the line of fire.

Subanen, literally “people of the river,” are among the 13 ethnic tribes in Mindanao Island. Numbering about a million in the Zamboanga peninsula, they settle along rivers in major river valleys and by the bays.

Riding on the crest of the Arroyo regime’s renewed interest in supporting mining operations as compared to the previous stance of mere tolerance, the Toronto Ventures Incorporated (TVI) , a Calgary-based company, made a comeback last year after halting operations in 1999.

Four years ago, the Subanen, backed by small-scale miners, resisted its explorations by meta-legal means, barricading the 600-hectare mining area for four months, and getting attention from national government and media on their plight.

Now, the group of long-time residents who claim ownership over the area due to a newly-issued ancestral domain certificate of title (CADT) of over 2,000 hectares, including that of the 500-ha. mining site, says they are against the long-term and wide-scale destruction brought about by open-pit mining

“Open-pit mining will change forever the landscape of our hills. We have lost most of the forest. Now, they want to open up the land. What will be left to give back to the next generations when they will skin the earth?” says Jose Anoy, the leader of the Siocon Subanon Association Inc. and a corn farmer.

But his support has dwindled to a little more than about 50 families from a high of 200.

Despite the organizational setbacks, Anoy is convinced the open-pit mining is not sustainable. “We don’t know the ways to catch a whale in the ocean and bring it to the giant tailings pond when the miners are gone, if indeed they intend to leave soon.”

His wife Elvira, cannot be convinced that after seven years when the mining is over, the scarred earth can hold new trees again as promised by TVI. How about the cyanide? She asks. Why is it that the forests logged by ZamboWood have not grown back?

The village used to be part of a rainforest that was logged in the 70s by the Zambo Wood, a Canadian firm. In the late 80s to mid-90s, it was a gold-rush site, a haven for mercury-using small-scale miners..

The rest of the Subanen resisting the mining firm have protested against the heightened militarization, the demolition and forced relocation, and the overall daily tension in the area that has traumatized the residents, particularly the children and the elderly.

“The guards at the checkpoints to our houses have become stricter since last year. We are really afraid of them. They’ve got guns,” said Saliling Anda, recalling how she missed the burial of her father in the other part of the Zamboanga peninsula because they won’t allow her to pass through.”They identified us among those who were at the barricades.”

The female Anoy fears more than just physical dislocation but loss of cultural identity. “What will happen to the young if we lose this land to mining? Our people will be driven out into the city. There, we will become beggars, our women ago-go dancers and shabu dealers,” she says.

Susan Calibo, a small-scale miner, speaks of the night when she was not allowed to bring her feverish children to the hospital by the guards at the checkpoint. “The aim is to break our resolve to stay in the village. They want us to grow tired of resisting and finally get out of the land so they can begin the mining.”

Most of the villagers have settled on a plateau that is part of the area covered by the open-pit. Relocation sites designated by the company are outside the mining site and beyond the dreaded checkpoints.

According to the Tri-People Peace and Development Foundation (Tri-Peace Dev), a non-profit organization based in the Zamboanga Peninsula, the TVI Resource Development Philippines Inc. is one of the subsidiaries of the Canadian-firm TVI Pacific Inc., with at least a dozen subsidiary companies in the country.

The Tri-Peace Dev also reported that TVI has applied for mining claims totaling about 1.25 million hectares, one of the biggest in the country. A recent list by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) shows TVI among the top 13 mining firms today.

But TVI project manager Ed de Ocampo says, “Asking us to leave is impossible. We are the legal ones .They, the illegals, should go. The small-scale miners and the Subanons should leave. We are the one operating according to the law.” The TVI holds a mining production sharing agreement with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and as early as in 1996.

As of press time, pending full-blast open-pit operations, the plant processes the tailings from the ponds of 13 out of the 36 small-scale miners.

”It is just about 50,000-80,000 tons per day, just to clean up what’s left by the crude methods of small-scale miners instead of letting these leach into the creeks and to the Lituban and Siocon rivers and allowing the mercury to affect the food chain.

Normal mining operations would entail processing at least 250,000 tons of ore a day, “ De Ocampo said.

“We can only have peace if the TVI will leave and allow us to live in peace among ourselves,” said Timuay Anoy. “Without the temptation of jobs at the plant, our folks would settle back to farming and stop pining for canned goods and appliances.”

But more of Anoy’s co-tribals are now working in various capacities at the TVI. For Lydia Dandanas, one of the two women in the influential policy-making council of elders, the path to peace is cooptation.

“Our intention is to live in peace and have work. Eat three times a day. Besides, we need to send our children to school. We cannot forever depend on the land. It is not as fertile as before,” Dandanas said. That’s why she works as a health worker at P175 a day. The others work as clerks, guards, janitors and laborers.

She charges too that her fellow tribals are lackeys of small-scale miners who are destroying the ecosystems here by using mercury. She believes that mercury, rather than cyanide, causes long-term defects in children and women..

She sees benevolence rather than exploitation in TVI’s offer to help her community through corporate-sponsored cooperatives. “They won’t be here forever. They want us to be self-reliant when they are gone,” she says.

She and several others had left their village and built new huts in relocation sites closer to the mining plant. “Here, we have clean running water for drinking and washing right near our yard,” she adds.

Young Subanen, barely out of their teens, do the dirty work. They bring the mercury-laden tailings to the plant in sacks slung over their shoulders and transported them in cargo trucks.

One of these trucks was ambushed on Dec.26 last year, killing 13 of the workers on their way home from work, including Marciano Sapian, leader of the pro-TVI Subanon organization.

No one had been arrested and none of the management was willing to talk about the suspects. “It is difficult to hook anyone or even say anything regarding the matter,” says De Ocampo. The rumor is that moro rebels had sent a strong message to TVI to pay revolutionary taxes or pay the higher cost of more slain workers.

In November last year the country’s president landed here from a helicopter and told both the TVI miners and the Subanen that a win-win solution to the land conflict was in the offing if they can hold dialogs and negotiate.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said that the country’s mining act can be reconciled with the ancestral domain claim law protecting the indigenous people’s rights and the small-scale mining code, benefiting all parties involved.

She asked that the Subanon peoples be united under one organization which will deal with TVI and the small-scale miners.

But Anoy now realizes that her advice could be a step to wrestling the leadership and transferring it to Subanen friendlier, if not subservient, to TVI’s interests.

In mineral-rich Mindanao, the southernmost island of the Philippine archipelago, the same plot of natives resisting mammoth mining interests is repeated in different tableaus. And in these stories, women like Anoy, Calibo and Dandanas must have made rather difficult choice between resistance and cooptation.