FOREIGN-owned Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI) has disclosed the details of the just completed extended pre-feasibility study, which confirms that the massive mineral deposits in Tampakan, South Cotabato will be extracted through open pit method.

This only describes that Tampakan and its vicinities are rich in mineral deposits but shall be extracted through an open-pit mining method, was publicly received with diametrically opposing emotional and psychological currents.

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One perception was that of a celebration for such news account was an affirmation of the goodness of Divine Providence who made the place a resemblance of a paradise.

The other perception was that of a serious fear for the future of basic communities, considering that an open-pit method is destructive, if the actual experiences of other mining areas are to be considered.

But there seems to be no cause for celebration as what is dominant in its social psyche now is that of fear for the destruction of this paradise-like natural enclave, and its negative effects on the people's lives, security and safety of basic communities and on the sustainability of local cultures, which richness subordinates any material grandeur and transcends beyond the application of an accepted development paradigm.

These are cultures that are indispensably attached to the natural environment. It is with nature that the tribes could commune with their Gods. For the tribes, indigenous or not, their cultural heritage is not only the core of their being and the source of life, but it is life itself.

Thus, any act of alienating them from their environment, without any clear-cut programs for cultural preservation and development, other than those that are clearly intended for the bastardization of tribal and community leaders, is repugnant to the cause of the future.

The importance of the preservation of rich local cultures appears more important now in the absence clear-cut policy that specifically defines the shares of communities from the benefits of local resources in accordance with the logic of justice and equity enshrined in the 1987 Constitution.

The benefits that local communities deserve are far more than the devious buy-out schemes that are being employed to ensure the cooperation and support of tribal and local state leaders in the affected area.

But, at the same time, we would like to make it clear that we do not agree to the ultra-radical positioning of activist environmental movements, advocating for hands-off policy on mineral deposits, and that any human action intended to exploit the same for the benefit of the people is a social aberration.

These mineral benefits are given by God for the welfare of the community and for the development of a nation. But, the process of extracting the same must be that such would not jeopardize the balance of nature, defile the earth by depriving it with its regenerative capacity, and disrupts its sustaining nature.