Monday, October 02, 2006 Tribal community gets opportunity By Allen V. Estabillo
EXCEPT for the newly constructed multipurpose building on the side of the main road leading to the center of the sleepy hamlet of Salnaong, nothing much has changed in the village during the last three years.
The rugged road going to the village -- dotted on the sides by decaying remnants of century-old trees -- still reminds of the old logging trail.
At the community's center, prominent structures such as the former tribal chieftain's house, the school building, and bunkhouse built several years ago by a mining company were still there but all have already shown signs of deterioration due to almost a decade of use.
But behind this gloomy picture, B'laan tribal chieftain Juanito Malid appears unusually upbeat and satisfied with the community's condition.
"There are other things far more important than physical or superficial improvements like the smiles in the faces of our children when they started to go back to their schools," the 36-year old tribal leader said in the vernacular in a recent interview at the village.
He said the existing lone secondary and five elementary schools in five of the eight sitios of the Salnaong tribal community have been up and running for three years now.
In Sitio Salnaong, the seat of the tribal council, its elementary school was reopened after two years of forced inactivity mainly due to lack of funds.
The community has also started to send some of its young people to colleges in nearby town centers and cities mainly on scholarships.
He said all these were realized after the tribal community made a change of heart and finally gave its nod to the planned large-scale copper and gold mining venture of mining firm Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI) in the rugged highlands of the tri-boundaries of the South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Davao del Sur provinces.
The Salnaong tribal community covers at least eight sitios or hamlets of Barangay Datal Blao, one of the areas explored by SMI for the mining project, in Columbio town in Sultan Kudarat.
Aside from Datal Blao, SMI's exploratory drilling operations also covered the mineral prospects in barangays Danlag, Pula Bato and Tablu of Tampakan town in South Cotabato and barangay Kimlawis of Kiblawan town in Davao del Sur.
The proposed mining area, which has been cited by geology experts as the second largest undeveloped copper and gold deposits in the Far East, is largely covered by the ancestral domains of the Salnaong, Bong Mal, S'bangken, Danlag and Folu Bato tribal communities.
Defiant tribe
SMI earlier acknowledged its successful negotiations with the Salnaong tribal council as one of the significant breakthroughs achieved by the company since it first made a bid to take over the mothballed copper and gold mining project of the Australian Western Mining Corporation (WMC) that started in the early 90s.
For many years, the tribal community virtually served as the bastion of the indigenous peoples' opposition to large-scale mining activities and later became the symbol of defiance against Republic Act 7942 or the Philippine Mining Act of 1995.
Although the tribal council, through its former chieftain Majon Malid, signed an initial agreement with WMC in 1995, it later refused to sign the principal agreement with the company. In fact, it was the only tribal council that did not sign such agreement that was considered as a vital requirement in the company's operations.
The Salnaong tribal council was among the key groups that pushed for a petition filed before the Supreme Court by the La Bugal Tribal Association, an organized group of various tribal councils in Columbio, questioning the Constitutionality of the mining law.
The group specifically called for the nullification of the Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) forged in 1995 by WMC and the government.
The FTAA essentially allowed the Australian company to mine for 25 to 50 years an area of 81,000 hectares for a minimum investment of only $50 million.
In 1997, Malid himself joined a speaking tour in Australia to highlight the campaign against WMC's operations.
Change of heart
However, all these changed when WMC eventually abandoned its operations in the area and sold its mining rights to another Australian company Indophil Resources that has linked up with local firms Sagittarius Mines Inc. and Tampakan Group of Companies, the original holders of the area's mining rights.
By then, Malid said the tribe already suffered so much as a result of their opposition to the mining activity. The area's peace and security has become unstable and one of the tribe's emerging leaders then, his brother Gorelmin, was killed in an ambush near their village.
The killing remains unsolved but the family claims it had something to with their opposition to the mining operations then.
When the new company eventually came in, the tribal council convened and made a crucial decision to open up negotiations with them, a move they still acknowledge as one of the most important choices they ever made.
Malid, who has since assumed the tribe's leadership from his father Majon, said they started talking with officials of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and later with representatives of the company.
In November 2003, the tribal council officially signed a preliminary agreement and later a principal agreement with SMI.
More on education
Malid still remembers the day about three decades ago when workers of a logging company sawed down the few remaining century-old Lawaan trees that used to cover their sleepy community.
The logging workers left a few months later, virtually bringing with them the area's forests. What was left of their trail were few felled trees and a bare land that was practically in shambles.
He could not exactly recall how many times the logging workers, their big trucks and rowdy chain saws disturbed their early morning sleep, but he remembers that they did not stop coming until almost nothing was left of their forests.
Malid said the elders of the tribe wanted to stop these activities but every time they attempted to make a move, the logging workers would show them papers supposedly bearing permits from the government that they cannot understand.
He said their community has suffered so much in the past simply because they are not knowledgeable enough to properly communicate with the more educated people.
"We were powerless because we don't understand the law and we're not aware of our rights," he said, adding that these factors were among the reasons why they were exploited and pushed around by some people.
And so during its initial consultations with the NCIP, the tribal council laid out education as one of their major concessions for the mining company.
"It was more on education. We realized that it was the most important need of our community, especially our children," said Jessie Lasib, a nephew of the tribal chieftain.
Lasib, a La Bugal campaigner-turned community development worker for SMI, said they were convinced they will have a better chance to improve their lives if they are properly educated.
The value education so much knowing it's their only solace and way out of their long years of struggle to break free from the bondage of poverty and isolation, he said.
Investing on education
Since the company started its preliminary activities in the area in 2002, it has already committed to help bring development to the communities covered by the mining venture by giving residents the access to proper education, SMI Overall Project Coordinator Dr. Rolando Doria stressed.
"It's so easy to convince them to do something that they don't even understand. But we don't want that to happen," he said.
Initially, the education program of SMI catered to the B'laans and other indigent students from the project communities by sending a number of them to free education from elementary to college, Doria said.
SMI also initiated vocational trainings to help prepare potential local workers when the actual mining operations would later commence.
The company poured in some P5 million to send its tribal scholars to school and provide additional teachers for the existing schools within the tribal community.
In 2005, Doria said the company spent some 7.3 million for its various education programs. Their investment increased to P9 million this year with the expansion of the scholarship coverage.
Under its expanded education program, the company initially assisted last year some 2,000 public elementary students coming from poor families in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat.
Through a partnership with the local government of Columbio, SMI offered scholarships to all first and second honor students from high schools throughout Columbio.
This year, SMI increased the number of scholars from Columbio and Tampakan towns with an additional 5,500 beneficiaries.
The company has committed to shoulder 75 percent of the school fees while local government units will shoulder the remaining requirement.
Boundless benefits
On top of SMI's education programs, the tribal community also managed to establish its own scholarship scheme through the tribal foundation that SMI helped put up.
Malid said the program, which receives an annual funding of P250,000 from the company, presently maintains 21 high school and college scholars.
So far, the tribal community is being served by elementary schools in sitios Salnaong, Lam-alis, Limunso and Lam Gawel and complete elementary to high school program in Datal Biao.
He said they are planning to later put up elementary schools in sitios Datal Saob, Bolol Lomot and Bolol Kalon.
In Salnaong, Malid said their elementary program would soon be expanded from the current grades one to four up to the sixth grade. They are planning to hire a third teacher for the school to handle the new classes.
"We're very excited with these developments and many great things are still coming," he said.
Bernabe Ingga, one of the company's community volunteers, agrees with their tribal chieftain's expectations.
For instance, Ingga doesn't know how old he was and he has no personal records bearing his name. But he's not worried about it.
"My future scholars will take care of them," added a grinning Ingga, while pointing to a cluster of kids playing in front of his home.
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