Lakay Nuepi’s mountain

5 MIN READ

By ELINA V. RAMO
www.nordis.net

ITOGON, Benguet — On a recent visit to Malasin, Ucab here brought to life memories of the struggle of small-scale miners in defense of their livelihood. It brings back the early ’90s when residents took turns manning their barricades.

The barricades discouraged the entry of heavy equipment that would then operate the Malasin-Keystone area. That was in the first three years of the ’90s.

Spared from being scraped are Sitios Malasin, Keystone, Goldcreek and Garrison, all but Malasin were renamed by American prospectors from their native names now little known even to Ucab residents.

From Santos Mero’s recollection, in his childhood natives to the place collectively referrred to the area as Piging, or a place that is leaning.

Ucab, from the Ibaloy term ukap, literally meaning turning stones, used to be Sitio Peday, of then barangay Gumatdang.

In late 1980’s to the early part of 1990, Benguet Corporation (BC), which was then actively operating the Antamok, Balatoc and Acupan mines, all in this prime mining town, embarked on open pit mining (OPM) in Barangay Loacan and was then contemplating to expand to three more barangays namely, Ucab, Virac and Ampucao.

Initial earth-moving operations had been progressing in the Keystone area, but residents successfully barricaded the area and stopped further damages on then already fragile environment. The residents eventually planted trees on the bulldozed area, now green with pine and alnus trees.

Nuepi’s experience

Nuepi Aguiguid, now more than 75 years old, has “retired” from being a small-scale miner.

“Lakay akon,” (I am already old) he kept saying. Weak due to age and an intermittent cough, he still goes inside the mine adits when his services are needed by the younger mangngusok, local term for private miners to differentiate them from the minero (company-hired miners).

Nuepi owns a considerable portion of the Malasin Mountain, which BC intended to mine. His wife and most of his offspring asserted their right to the place, inspiring many other residents to fight against the corporate encroachment in the early ’90s.

“Tatta, dagiti appo ti adda a mangipinget ti karbengan da iti daga,” (Now, the grandchildren assert their right to the land) Nuepi told Nordis.

A Torrens Title covers his property. He refers to the tenurial instrument as Spanish title, which defines his claims over the mineral-rich land now home to several other mining households. Other land claimants include the Tiongans.

Most of the residents of Malasin belong to the Aguiguid family, according to Mero. The Nuepi family is a big brood of seven.

Ado da isunga addan ti 38 nga appok ken 16 nga appok iti tumeng,” (I have many children so that I now have 38 grandchildren and 16 great grand children) he proudly says as he remembers all seven. He could hardly tell the number of his grand and great grand children.

His bronze skin shining in the midday sun, Nuepi coughs incessantly, as he struggles to tell his story. His body is frail and hair gray. His eyes are always wet and seemed itchy.

“TB daytoy,” (This is TB) he says as though he did not care if other people would mind. He has stopped taking his medicines, which have actually expired.

Frail as he is, he demonstrates how the miners use the kunyas and malo to get the mineral ore. He shows young miners how to strengthen the tunnel with the use of minimum timber.

“Awanen ti kayo ta inibus dagiti kumpanya,” (There are no more trees because the company has depleted the forests) Nuepi laments. He says, as much as possible, miners leave pillars to avoid cave-ins.

Small-scale mining in the Cordillera

Nuepi’s mountain is where some small-scale miners now draw their livelihood. It is just one among many small-scale mining communities in the Cordillera. All the nine barangays of Itogon are considered mining sites.

A paper by the peasant group Alyansa dagiti Pesante iti Taeng Kordilyera (Apit Tako) claims the underlying mineral belt of the Cordillera extends from the southernmost tip of Itogon in Benguet, even overflowing to the adjacent Pangasinan towns, to the Apayao towns Cabugao and Conner.

In 2007, Apit Tako placed to some 33,000 the small-scale mining population in the Cordillera. Only Ifugao did not register small-scale mining activities, although Ifugaos are into gold production in many mining communities in the region and elsewhere in Cagayan and Ilocos regions, not to mention the gold-rush areas in Mindanao.

Only two towns in Benguet, La Trinidad and Sablan, do not host mining activities, although some residents in these towns have been either corporate or small-scale miners, according to Gov. Nestor Fongwan.

Mangngusok, managsayyo (gold-panners) and managbalkis (sluicers) are also in Atok, Bakun, Buguias, Bokod, Kabayan, Kapangan, Kibungan, Mankayan, Tuba, and Tublay, besides Itogon.

In Abra, SSM activities are in Baay-Licuan, Bucay and recently, Lacub. Fidelisan in Sagada, Alab and Mainit in Bontoc, both in Mountain Province, are among well-known mining communities. Gaang and Banao are in Balbalan, Kalinga. Apayao miners are in Conner and Cabugao, extending towards the Ilocos area. Baguio City also has its share in small-scale mining with the lode in Kias, Puksusan, Irisan, etc.

Sustainable practices

“They should only get what their family needs,” he says. “Nothing more.”

Indigenous small-scale mining practices consider the environment and the sustainability of the trade, according to Virgilio Aniceto, spokesperson of Benguet Mining Alert and Action Network (BMAAN).

Small-scale miners get only what they needed and with small-scale production, they could not go deeper than 30 meters

Deeper than this, the miners would need a mechanized blower to infuse oxygen, timbering to strengthen the tunnels and lighting equipment. They would also need a railway for the mining wagon to carry the mineral ores and muck waste out of the tunnel.

“Indigenous miners cannot afford the amenities of a large corporate tunnel,” Aniceto said.

When Nuepi was younger, his father started a tunnel in Malasin following a stringer that the rains exposed. He said his grandfather was also a miner.

His grand children are also into small-scale mineral operations but are hoping they would also land a better job than mining.

“Narigat ti agusok,” (It is hard to mine) one of them told Nordis. He started working the mines at 14. He is only in his 30’s but he looks older.

A gram of gold costs P1,383 as of April 14. A team of miners produces less than a gram in a week’s operation, if the tunnel yields low-grade ore. It is normal that a ton of ore yield only less than a gram of gold nowadays because the high-grade ores have been depleted in the more than four centuries of mining including corporate mining operations, according to Aniceto.

“Idi ti alaen mi ket jay high-grade laeng. Ibelleng mi ti low-grade,” (We used to get only the high-grade ore. We throw into the waste the low-grade ores) Nuepi says, adding there is no more to throw now because even the tailings are being re-processed.

Apit Tako says in Itogon, the perfection of a locally developed technique of cyanide heap leaching has made it possible for small-scale lode miners to work low-grade ore economically.

“Here, only low-grade ore has remained at accessible depths after nearly four centuries of intermittent extraction and four decades of sustained exploitation,” the Apit Tako presentation said.

Sustaining the mangngusok

According to Apit Tako, heap-leaching, along with the steep decline in the price of agricultural produce coupled with a sharp rise in the world price of gold, has attracted more into small-scale mining in recent years and at present.

Nuepi’s parents were from Ampusungan, Bakun and Suyoc, in Mankayan. He has been mining since he was a teenager, and like his father, passed on the traditional knowledge to his kin. A great grand child, now only 21, is among skilled miners, wishing to land a job elsewhere because “mining is back-breaking.”

Asked if he had wished he were not a miner, Nuepi said he is proud to remain a miner and has not thought of any other source of livelihood.

A mining family in the Cordillera also tends swidden farms to produce food crops for the family. In Itogon communities, however, not so many are like Nuepi’s family who still has a little land left to till. The depletion of water sources from a century-old mineral exploitation worsens the situation.

On the other hand, miners from Ifugao leave their rice terraces while waiting for harvest to join small-scale miners elsewhere, mostly in Itogon and Kasibu and Didipio, in Nueva Vizcaya.

Apit Tako’s analysis that small scale mining can be a sustainable livelihoood is based on the employment of clean technology that frown at the use of toxic materials as mercury and cyanide in gold recovery. # nordis.net