Aquino’s EO 79 cited in bid to save farms from mining

BAGUIO CITY—President Benigno Aquino III’s mining policy may yet save some gold-rich areas in Benguet from being dug up in a South African firm’s mining venture that is being opposed by a group of indigenous peoples.

Richard Kilaan, a lawyer who represents the antimining group Save Mankayan Movement (SMM), said  Aquino’s Executive Order No. 79 protects indigenous communities sitting atop a vast gold deposit in Benguet from mining.

EO 79 declared farming areas off-limits to mining. Kilaan said the villages of Bulalacao and Tabeo in Mankayan, Benguet, which are in the mining area of Far Southeast Gold Project (FSGP) and its principal Gold Fields Ltd. (GFL), a South African company, are farming communities.

Representatives from the two villages boycotted a July 27 assembly of 400 elders, who voted 258 to 51 to allow FSGP and GFL to proceed with its mining operations in Mankayan.

Under the Mining Act which is being reviewed by the Supreme Court based on a petition by antimining groups, the consent of indigenous peoples is needed before any mining operation can proceed in areas populated by tribal groups.

The Mankayan vote, overseen by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), would allow the gold project to expand in several communities, including Bulalacao and Tabeo.

At a news conference here on Thursday, Kilaan said the Bulalacao and Tabeo communities are asking the NCIP to nullify the results of the vote.

EO 79 states that prime agricultural lands, agrarian reform lands and strategic agriculture and fisheries development zones being formed by the Department of Agriculture are now no-mining zones, alongside protected ecosystems and areas covered by a National Tourism Development Plan.

Sancho Buquing, NCIP Cordillera director, said the agency has not received any formal petition protesting the July 27 assembly, but the votes were valid and the process was aboveboard. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon