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More Benguet folk into peasant production than mining

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet (July 19) — Small scale peasant-based mining production and the agricultural sector enliven Benguet’s underground economy and provide employment to majority of the province’s population, Vice-governor Crescencio Pacalso admits after Governor Borromeo Melchor’s State of the Province Address (SOPA) at the Provincial Board’s Session Hall on Tuesday, July 19.

Benguet is undoubtedly the salad and vegetable bowl of the Philippines and is the keeper of the pot of gold. Pacalso, underscored that more people are engaged in both agriculture and small-scale mining than large-scale mining employment. He said that more than 50% of the province’s population are in these informal sectors.

“It is impossible for us to depend on large scale mining to perk up the economy,” Pacalso said, “because obviously, it is agriculture and small scale mining that employ a larger portion of our constituents.” He said that although these do not pay taxes directly, they contribute to and enliven the underground economy.

Pacalso said small-scale mining production even exceeds the gold production of large mines in the province. He puts the population dependent on small-scale mining at 20,000 or more. He confirms earlier reports that traditional miners are producing more than their corporate counterparts do.

In his SOPA, Melchor said that around 66% or two-thirds of Benguet population either directly or indirectly depend on agriculture for livelihood.

Peasant-based small-scale mining

A February 2004 study by APIT TAKO or the Alliance of Peasants in the Cordillera Homeland reveals that the Cordillera holds 25% of all Philippine ore reserves that are primarily gold-bearing.

According to APIT TAKO, a mineral belt of gold-bearing ore underlies the Northern Luzon Cordillera’s central mountain range. Yet for nearly 500 years, small-scale gold mining here was limited to two districts within the province of Benguet: the Agno-Bued river basin and the Abra river watershed.

The peasant group notes that today, the two districts are mapped as parts of the municipalities of Itogon, Tuba, Tublay, and Kabayan in southern and eastern Benguet, and Kibungan, Buguias, Bakun, and Mankayan in western and northern Benguet. Because American and Filipino corporations have also been operating large, industrial mines here for the past 100 years, the first district mentioned is nearly depleted of all types of gold ore deposits, and the second, of those deposits found at levels accessible to small-scale mining.

On the national scale, Ibon Facts and Figures, in its special release in January 2005, noted that of the 37,844 kilograms of gold the Philippines produced in 2003, small-scale miners provided 31,473 kilograms of gold. This represented net purchases by the Central Bank of the Philippines from the Acupan SSM Project, Banahaw Gold Project and the Diwalwal Project, Ibon reports. Acupan is in Benguet. The next two largest primary gold producers do not come close to small scale mining. These are Philex Mining Corporation’ Padcal Copper Project (2,838 kgs.) and Lepanto Consolidated Mining Corporation’s Victoria Gold Project (2,781 kgs.), both in Benguet.

Melchor reiterates the need for small-scale miners to organize themselves into municipal associations to enjoy government support. He also urged them to engage in tree-planting activities to protect the watershed, which he said gives off water necessary for mining processes.

Likewise, Melcor wants to turn small-scale mining industry into a major livelihood in Benguet as one of six priorities in the province’s August 2005 to July 2006 development goals. He wants the small-scale miners to be professionalized as well as to be conscious of the environment and health and safety.

The SOPA also confirmed earlier reports from the regional development council, which said that more than half of the Cordillera workforce is still in the agriculture sector. The state of the region address by Mt. Province Governor and concurrently RDC Chairperson Maximo Dalog pointed out that the number employed by the industry sector has been halved between 1988 and 2003, despite its dominance in gross output.

APIT TAKO also agrees with Pacalso’s assessment that agriculture provides more employment than mining.

Melchor points out to legal and illegal importation and smuggling as causing depressed vegetable prices for Benguet produce. The recently signed Bilateral Trade Agreement with the People’s Republic of China, which affects carrots, he said, further worsens this, and other temperate vegetables produced not only in Benguet but also in other Cordillera provinces.

APIT TAKO traces the problem to the country’s inclusion in the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade’s (GATT’s) Agreement on Agriculture, which spelled out liberalization in the country’s agriculture. Then Sen. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo spearheaded the signing of the GATT. # Lyn V. Ramo for NORDIS

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