GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF THE PHILIPPINES

From Community Relations to Community Development: In pursuit of Sustainable Community Development at the Tampakan Project Area

 

Rolando S. Doria,M.B.A., M.P.A.1 and Moreno Tagwalo2
1Community Development Coordinator
2Over-All Project Coordinator
Sagittarius Mines, Incorporated

This paper will be expounding on the strategies and activities which Sagittarius Mines, Incorporated (SMI) has employed with regard working with the community at Tampakan.

Background

When SMI inherited Tampakan Copper-Gold Project from the Western Mining Corporation (WMC) of Australia, the company also inherited the commitment to help with the social and economic development in those host communities.

Among the first things the company did was to investigate and start profiling the Tampakan Project’s host communities.

The Tampakan Project is hosted by five (5) barangays: three (3) from Tampakan in South Cotabato province, one (1) in Kiblawan in Davao del Sur province, and one (1) in Columbio in Davao del Sur province.

Because of these characteristics, the Tampakan Copper-Gold Project is unique from the other exploration projects because the Project Area is located right inside an ancestral domain area and hosted by five (5) B’la-an tribal communities in the five (5) barangays mentioned.

The communities in the area are richly varied culturally but poor economically.

Specifically, they are:

    1. the B’la-an indigenous people (IP) communities that formerly extended over most of South Cotabato. They are in the tribal communities of Danlag, Folu Bato, S’bangken, Bong Mal and Salnaong

    2. some remnants of the Islamic datus, especially in Columbio, Davao del Sur, who had considerable influence over the B’la-ans in earlier days; and

    3. the mainly Visayan settlers who started moving into the area during the 1930s.

The foregoing differing characteristics and composition of the host communities thus gave SMI one particular challenge. From the start, it was very difficult to talk of a single host community at Tampakan. This is because the different communities have very different agendas.

WMC, the earlier proponent of the project, tried very hard to assist the B’la-ans in preparing them for a possible mineral development project. Among other things, the B’la-ans were able to file Ancestral Domain Claims, which is a step towards obtaining a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title with WMC’s help.

Despite this, most of the community programs set up earlier by WMC have resulted in far less than expected development.

 
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