NCIP, MGB favor mining exploration, farmers worry

Press Release
August 9, 2004

National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) and Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) brashly ignore the opposition posed by the peasant organization Timpuyog ti Mannalon iti Kalinga (TMK).

Cordillera Peoples Alliance questions the approval of the NCIP on Certificate Precondition Consent applied by Wolfland Resources, Inc. and condemns the MGB for signing the exploration permit following the said approval.

As a matter of right and process, NCIP should consider to tackle the said opposition because the exploration project will not only concern barangays Magnao, Guilayon and Nambucayan but it will also affect nearby communities such as barangays Dugpa and Baay in the municipality in Pinukpuk, Kalinga. Farmlands of these two barangays are irrigated by the Mananig waterway which will be tapped during Wolfland’s mining exploration activities.

In the future, other lowland communities along the Chico River in Kalinga and barangay Tuao in Cagayan are seen to also experience adverse impacts as the exploration widens because of the expected tailings of Wolflands’s mining activities that will route along the Chico River.

Given these extensive impacts in barangays Dugpa, Baay and other lowland barangays in Kalinga and barangay Tuao in Cagayan, NCIP should have also asked approval for the mining exploration from the said barangays.

Finally, CPA expresses its reservation on the process that took place in coming up with an FPIC for the mining exploration project and doubts whether the given FPIC was free from deceptions and manipulations and was really a whole communities’ position and not only by some individuals.
Further CPA challenges MGB to hold the exploration permit and further discuss the issue among all barangays that will be affected by the said mining exploration. # Public Information Commission – Cordillera Peoples Alliance