Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

Chapter 2.1: Local Community Assistance
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recognized ancestral domain. The Binonga’s ancestral domain was at
Mt. Capcapo, which the indigenous communities have taken care of and
developed to give them life and nourish new generations.
As early as 1998, the communities’ right to FPIC was violated with the
issuance of two Mineral Production Sharing Agreements in their ancestral
domain without their FPIC. These agreements were applied for by the
local company Jabel, with an associate AMIC. On November 23, 2006,
Canadian Olympus Pacific Minerals entered into a Memorandum of
Agreement with these two companies. They then started exploratory
drilling in the 4,300-hectare mining claim in February 2007, without
securing the communities’ FPIC. In response, the Binongan indigenous
communities started filing petitions against Olympus, asserting the
violation of their right to FPIC. Sustained opposition temporarily
suspended the exploration and drilling, and prompted the government’s
National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to call the attention
of Olympus to comply with the legal requisite of acquiring the FPIC.
Sustained Opposition and Assertion of Right to FPIC
This led to a series of statutory community consultations that started on
April 15, 2008 at Barangay (village) Bolbolalla and took place in all the 11
barangays. In these succeeding consultative assemblies, the Binongan
reiterated their collective opposition against Olympus, except for the
two barangays of Nalbuan and Bunglo, who voted to accept the project,
believing the company’s promises of employment and roads.
In support of the community opposition, the Binongan elders led a ritual on
April 22 in Mt. Capcapo, where a pig was butchered and its blood spilled
on specific parts of the mountain, symbolizing the Binongan’s collective
ownership of the land. The ritual was also to ward off evil elements, in
this case, in the shape of Olympus. On April 24 there was a celebration
of Cordillera Day organized by the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA),
but locally hosted at the central barangay of Baay-Licuan (Poblacion
Licuan). The 3,000-strong gathering signed a declaration supporting the
local communities’ earlier petitions against Olympus. Binongan elders
and leaders also came out with a strong statement in a Unity Pact against
Olympus and other large mines, penned in the Binongan tongue.
On May 24, the different sectors of elders, women and youth reiterated
their stand against Olympus, with another set of resolutions strongly
backing the tide of official petitions sent to the regional and provincial
offices of the NCIP.