The Philippines as a whole not only has never legislated nepotism, it actually holds the practice in high esteem. For Filipinos of all ethnicities the family is everything. Therefore, it is counter-intuitive to Filipinos, to view nepotism as anything but a positive occurrence. In addition, the Philippines is a nation of patriarchal tribal cultures. The convergance of both these dynamics has rendered the political landscape of the country one of a playing field tightly controlled by a relatively few political dynasties who almost always rely on the proverbial "Goons and Gold" to maintain their iron grip on power.
In Mindanao this is especially true. Take for instance, ComVal, or, as it is known to people outside of Mindanao, Compostela Valley Province. Carved mostly out of Davao del Norte Province in 1998, it has remained the personal fifedom of two families, the Caballeros, and the Uys, with the latter currently holding the Governorship since 2007. Govetnor Arturo Tao Uy, whose usually known by his Chinese name, Chionkee [sic], is-like most politicos- deeply enmeshed in at least grey sectors of the economy. Amongst Uy's grey market holdings are a group of gold mills, to process the ore mined in several sections of the province. That Governor Uy might profit from industries he is tasked with legislating and policing is a non-issue since Philippine Law and ethics dont go near such things. Naturally then, Uy has used his position of power to sweeten the pit for several multi-nationals.
At 8PM, on June 8th, 2012, two single axle dumptrucks entered the municipality of New Bataan's Barangay Camanlangan, and then reduced speed as they crossed together into that barangay's Sitio Tagpura before stopping several meters short of the Philco Mining Company compound. Dismounting from the two trucks, thirty NPA guerillas from Front 27, the Rhyme Petalcorin Command of the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, split into three elements. Ten guerillas formed the strike force while the remaining two groups of five cadres each took up perimeter positions around the outside of the compund's chainlink and razor wire fencing.
As the strike force quickly entered the compound they rounded up the few security guards present and announced that the NPA was undertaking a punative action in response to Philco's refusal to pay its "Revolutionary Tax" debt. Amazingly the guards were unarmed and so the NPA failed to capture any weaponry, but managed to make up for that disappointing fact by pouring gasoline over ten portable generators, one excavator, one tracked utility vehicle with a boom, a large drilling rig, and two Elf trucks...all of which were then burned entirely.
Withdrawing out of the compound the strike force piled back into the two dumptrucks which then advanced past the compound and picked up the renaining ten guerillas on the ground. Onward the two trucks drove until at just before 11PM that night, they entered the municipality of Nabunturan, also in ComVal. Making their way to Barangay Mainit, the trucks drove until they located a specific "planta," or gold mill out of the thirty-four dotting that barangay's landscape.
This particular mill, in Sitio Inupuan, is owned by none other than Governor Arturo "Chionkee" Tao Uy himself. Using his position of power and influence, Uy wrangled himself a dedicated customer, the "Milagros-Oz" gold operation in the booming Maragusan Gold Field. Like virtually all gold mills in ComVal, this mill was more profitable than the mine it serviced. Charging P2,000 ($44) per "puyong," or 50 kilogramme sack, it was guaranteed a cashflow since it took its cut off of the top. Uy and his clan own several mills in ComVal, a province where nine out of the eleven municipalities host high assay gold fields.
As the guerillas from Front 27 dismounted from their trucks near the gold mill, they almost literally landed on a PNP, or Philippine National Police officer, Senior Police Officer First Grade (SPO1) Charlie Azucar. Taking the hapless officer prisoner after divesting him of his 45 caliber service revolver, he was kept under guard by three guerillas from the perimeter force, with the NPA having re-assumed the same configuration as the Philco assault elements three hours earlier. Quickly infiltrating the mill compound, the guerillas disarmed the nine soldiers from the Uy paramilitary, capturing their nine 45 caliber pistols, two M653s ("mini-M16s"), one M14, and one Ingram machine pistol.
After seizing an unknown amount of cash and golddust, the NPA withdrew at just after midnite. Taking SPO1 Azucar with them in their dumptrucks the NPA next drove to the home of the barangay captain to whom they released the abducted police officer, minus his pistol. With SPO1 Azucar freed, the two trucks then exited the barangay before being abandoned as the thirty guerillas withdrew on foot with their captured weaponry and loot.
As noted above, among Uy's playmates is the Oz Metal Exploration and Development Corporation. Uy, via the partnering corporation, Milagrosa Mineral Resources Corporation, has his hooks in ComVal's newest goldrush, the Maragusan Field, 300 hectares on the borders of Barangays Tupaz and Pamintaran. The compound, in Pamintaran's Sitio Saranga, is protected by Uy's paramilitary, and by the looks of it, they are in dire need of a brushup. As SPO1 Azucar was being released at just after midnite, June 9th, another "platun" (platoon) from Front 27 was readying themselves to launch a third assault in ComVal.
Approaching the mining compound on foot after trekking down the single muddy track that connects the two aforementioned barangays to the town proper, nearly 5 kilometers away, the guerillas from Front 27 very quickly disarmed the ten paramilitary soldiers on duty. As is almost always the case, they were drinking beer and playing cards.
Quickly herding the stunned captives into the compound offices, the NPA captured ten 45 caliber pistols, one KG machine pistol, one shotgun, six handheld radios and one cellphone. The guerillas then turned their attention to the lack of heavy equipment sitting inside the compound perimeter. After informing their captives that the following action was being undertaken due to the firms' refusals to pay its share of "Revolutionary Taxes," poured gasoline over the three portable generators sitting against the fence, and then set them afire before withdrawing out of the compound and back down the dirt track. From there, the guerillas split up into several smaller groups for the long hike through the jungle.
A third and fourth platoon, both from Front 2, the Crucifino Uballas Command, also of the SMRC, ambushed a convoy from the 71IB (Infantry Battalion) as the 71st was being deployed for the "Hot Pursuit" against Front 27 for its three attacks. The ambush, in the municipality of Mawab's Barangay New Visayas took place at 540AM, June 9th, as the last 6 x 6 troop carrier rolled into Purok #2. The NPA claims it killed five soldiers. It did not. It did however, wound four, one critically, from the initial IED blast (Improvised Explosive Device).
Showing posts with label ComVal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ComVal. Show all posts
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Development Aggression,Second Quarter of 2011,Part V:Mount Diwalwal
The Diwata Mountains span a good portion of Eastern Mindanao's interior.From Surigao del Sur Province in the north all the way through Agusan del Sur and ComVal (Compostela Valley) Provinces heading south until finally they slope down onto the fertile plains of Davao del Norte Province.Mount Diwata itself sits on the southern portion of the range,in the municipality of Monkayo in ComVal Province.Home to four Lumad Tribes ("Lumad"is a generic term for all Malayan Animist Hilltribes on Mindanao):
1) Manobo
2) Mandaya
3) Mangguangan
4) Dibabawon
These tribes have inhabited that part of the mountain range since time immemorial.Though gold has been produced and traded there almost as long it didn't adversely effect members of these four tribes until the early 1980s.In August of 1980 Mandaya Tribesmen Datu Camilo"Kamini"Banad began gold panning at a newly discovered site called Bayugan III in the town sharing that name in Agusan del Sur Province.By New Year of 1983 the drought effecting most of the island caused the water levels in the Bayugan River to drop so low that even a manual endeavour like panning for gold became nearly impossible.Holding on as long as he could,by March of that year Banad was forced to return to his home village along the Naboc River in the municipality of Monkayo in the neighbouring province of Davao del Norte,in what is today ComVal,or Compostela Valley Province.
After a non-productive spring and summer Datu Banad decided once again to try his luck panning for gold,beginning in August,this time on the Naboc River itself.Not finding very much of anything he recalled that as a youth,in 1973,he had served as a guide for two Japanese treasure hunters and a Filipino engineer,as they scoured the mountains searching for promising finds.He recalled that on the day their expedition ended they had all been well up river,atop a plateau near the PICOP depot in Sitio Balite.PICOP,or Paper Industries Corporation,held logging concessions over much of Northern Mindanao,feeding their huge paper plants in the neighbouring Region of Caraga.On the day in question the Japanese and their engineer had agreed that 2 kilometers upriver from the depot there was a rich vein of gold.Remembering the conversation Banad resolved to begin searching up river.
On September 21st,1983 Banad and 2 of his fellow villagers,Benjamin Wenceslao and Eugenio"Boy"Avila set off downstream,to throw off the persistent village stragglers who always followed him as he panned the Naboc River.After trekking a considerable distance the three men cut into the jungle and reversed course,upriver,but walking far inland from their village.Reaching the targetted area Datu Bamad instructed his 2 companions to spread out and the three began prospecting.Panning for gold is an incredibly simple process though the actual mechanics,like most any physical act,take a bit of practice.Working on the premise of gravity,using a flat tin pan,a miner scoops up river sand or gravel with just a modicum of water and swirls the contents at a 45 degree angle.By holding it at an angle the heavier sediment in the pan will sink to the bottom.Tipping out the water and excess sediment one keeps swirling the pan's contents until,if one is fortunate,they are left with an iota of gold,usually as dust.Though gold is sometimes found in rivers and creeks,this can only happen when a vein of gold,a large underground deposit of mixed ore,is shattered,exposed to rain or underground streams and then,just as in panning,gravity does the rest.
At the first target site all three men quickly came up with gold dust but because it was late in the day they decided to pack it in and return to their village,after first swearing each other to secrecy.Early the next day,September 22nd,the three men once again feigned as if heading down stream and then retracing their steps made their way to the productive site of the previous day.Again coming up with gold dust rather quickly,Banad decided to try and find the source,the shattered vein of gold.Continuing upstream they eventually passed the now abandoned PICOP depot where Datu Banad had first heard those words 10 years before.Panning again this time their gold dust had large flecks interspersed throughout it,a sure sign that the men were moving in the right direction.In fact,panning was so good that the three decided to bed down for the night so as not to lose the great progress they had made thus far.The next morning,September 23rd the thee men set off before daybreak and began steadily climbing in elevation as they followed the river which had narrowed considerably in the long trek.Before long the river,now little more than a creek,split into 4 feeders,showing the group that they were making progress in their search for the river's headwaters.Now the men panned every other hour and always they achieved more positive results than they had in their previous try.
Walking two hours from where the Naboc River had split into four feeders they reached a high plateau ringed with steep cliff faces.Just past noon they reached the edge of Sitio Balite,an unihabited stretch of jungle that PICOP had just vacated after four years of heavy logging.Just above the plateau was a PICOP bridge,spanning what was now a slow moving,single creek.Not too far away was the PICOP bunkhouse which had quickly fallen into disuse.Here the three men panned again.Starting in sand they were excited to find small nuggets in eack try.Next they tried the creek's gravel bed and there too they found decently sized gold nuggets.It was clear to Banad that the PICOP logging road had been constructed through a gold field,shattering part of the vein.He knew it was the logging road because had it been an old shattering by earthquake there would be very little gold in the gravel bed,it would be instead in residual deposits in sand along the stream bed's edges.Knowing they were very close to a rich find Banad had Avila prepare lunch.Afterwards he had Wenceslao head upstream,and asked him to look and see if the logging road traversed the mountain at any higher elevations.If so Banad said,begin panning just below the road.As Weceslao departed upstream Avila and Banad busied themselves at their present site.
Later that afternoon Wenceslao returned and confirmed that indeed PICOP did have a segment of that newly constructed logging road located near the top of the mountain.With that the 3 rushed upstream reaching it as the sun sat low in the sky.Still,before nightfall the 3 had recovered enough gold dust,flecks and nuggets to fill a small bottle.Wenceslao had,under Banad's direction,discovered the motherlode.
The source stood almost atop Bundok Diwata,or Mount Diwata.The mountain,which gave the entire mountain range its name was known locally as"Bundok Diwalwal,"a play on its actual name.While"Diwata"means"Idol,"as in"religious idol,""Diwalwal"means"Absolutely Exhausted,"named as such for the feelings it generated whenever someone hiked the trail in its entierty.
The next day,a bottle of gold in hand,the three men happily returned home after once again swearing each other to secrecy.Though the three men continued prospecting at the source for another satisfying three weeks,word of the fortuitous discovery spread quickly.Fearing being shut out of their own discovery,Banad,Avila,and Wenceslao jointly filed six separate DOLs,or Declarations of Location,with the BFD (Bureau of Forest Development).DOLs are effectively Prospecting Claims.Following suit other villagers began to file DOLs of their own.In fact,it got to the point where Datu Banad began growing paranoid that one of them,and not him,had staked a claim on the motherlode.With this in mind Banad gathered his fellow villagers and convinced them that they could all increase their chances of striking it rich by forming a partnership.Taking the villagers that agreed with him Banad formed the Balite Communal Portal Mining Corporation,or BCPMC.
By December,less than 60 days later,local clans from all 4 of the tribes living on and around the mountain had begun following suit,filing DOLs of their own up and down the Naboc River.With the flurry in claims came a barrage of disadvantageous offers that tried to manipulate the cooperative into a weak position.Still,Banad lacked the neccessary business savvy and technical know-how needed for a successful endeavour.Realising that not only was he himself in way over his head but that he had led his people into a very vulnerable position as well,Datu Banad began looking for ways in which to navigate what was for him uncharted waters.With more than a little trepidation then he took the plunge and on December 12th,1983 he entered into a Joint Operating Agreement with Apex Mining.Just after New Year,January of 1984,PICOP attempted to re-assert what it felt were its rights inherent within their timberconcession and closed the single logging road leading upcountry into Sitio Balite.Even without a road more and more people crowded the small mountain each day.Then,on February 2nd,1984 local agents filed sixteen separate DOLs for the Marcopper Mining Corporation,all of which were contigious to those filed by Datu Banad's Balite Communal Portal Mining Company,or BCPMC.Marcopper,a subsidiary of the Canadian-based multi-national giant Placer Dome,was the company who would single handedly create the worst mining disaster in world history when 12 million metric tonnes of tailings flowed into a 26 kilometer long river on the Philippine island of Marinduque when an improperly constructed dam gave way,though that was still more than a decade into the future.
By the Summer of 1985 the once isolated village of less than 600 Tribesmen was bursting at the seems with an estimated 20,000 people from every corner of the Philippines.Anytime gold is discovered in a new place people will embellish their stories of newly found riches so that by the end of their tall tale people are already considering making a go of it themselves.Still,even without the gross exaggeration that always accompanies a recent discovery Mount Diwalwal truly is a motherlode.In a country where the average wage is less than 300 Pesos a day in 2011,nearly 30 years after its discovery,the mountain still produces well over 6,000 Pesos a day for each independent prospector.By law all small scale miners at Diwalwal must sell their yield through the Davao City Station of the Banko ng Sentral (Central Bank of the Philippines) which reports well over P2 Billion in purchases a year just out of a 729 hectare site atop the mountain.It is no wonder then that people continuously flocked to thesite in those heady early years,causing the community to increase exponentially with total disregard for planning and infrastructure.As with all small scale mining communities of any size brothels,bars and drug dealing became very well entrenched incredibly early on.
By 1985 Marcopper's attorneys had performed their due dilligence and had learned that in 1931 then Governor-General of the Philippines,Dwight F.Davis,had issued Proclamation #369 creating the"Agusan-Davao-Surigao Forest Reserve."The 1,927,400 hectare reservation covered the length of the island,from north to south.Within this vast tract lay Mount Diwalwal.According to Philippine Law,mining rights within Forest Reserves fall under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Mining and Geosciences,or BMG (today known as the MGB),with whom one must file for a Prospecting Permit (as opposed to the aforementioned DOL which offers the same legal protections).Ergo,a DOL through the BFD was useless.Realising this all-important information Marcopper abandoned its sixteen DOLs and immediately filed for Prospecting Permits instead.On July 1st,1985 Marcopper received its nervously awaited Permits covering a grand total of 4,941.67 hectares that extended across the provincial line into Davao del Norte's municipality of Cateel.Interestingly,showing a huge disconnect between BMG's parent entity the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Bureau of Forest Development the Prospecting Permits fully encompassed every single one of the DOLs issued thus far.This would be the start of a geopolitical clusterfuc* that continues up until the present.Handing out the same parcel of land to different groups is never smart but doing so when that parcel happens to contain some of the world's most valuable gold fields is insane.
Just 4 months later,on November 11th,1985,moving at the speed of light Marcopper applied for an Exploratory Permit.Lo and behold,on March 10th,1986 the Bureau of Mines and Geo-Sciences (BMG) issued Marcopper a two year Exploration Permit,#133,and the company began sinking test holes.Drilling into the mountain they took core samples which aside from confirming the obvious presence of gold also revealed the quality of the metal.The company was astounded,it had almost blindly stumbled into one of the planet's most profitable gold fields.When BGM issued this permit there were already nearly 80,000 people living in a squatter settlement stretching 6 kilometers out from the mountain on all sides.Mining had proliferated to such a degree that it now encompassed more than 10,000 hectares and houses sat atop tunnels creating a potential deadly disaster.
Competition was so keen that adits,or side tunnels off of the portal,or main tunnel,often collapsed because of parallel adits from competitors being excavated mere centimeters away.Despite the huge buildup the mining was relegated to rudimentary methodology.24 hours a day tunnels barely wide enough for a skinny adult held 5 to 6 labourers,sometimes as young as 8 or 9 years of age.Placed head to toe the labourers worked with shovels,picks, mallets,and even chisels to separate ore from the tunnel walls.Filling half-sacks,nylon rice bags holding up to 45 kilograms of materiel they would signal when their bag was full and each labourer would crawl out backwards,centimeter by centimeter as the miner in question dragged their bag of rocks.Placing the sack at the collection point the labourer would re-enter his tunnel,this time near the entrance with the other labourers having quickly crawled back in since they were paid by the bag.
At the collection point young boys and elderly men,sometimes women,swung sledge hammers,mallets and carpenter's hammers as they pulverised the contents of each sack,having first dumped the contents onto the ground.Re-bagging the pulverised contents they hauled the 45 kilogram sacks on their back to rod mills,whose own labourers fed the contents into the mill.For 4 hours the mills ground the ore after which the mill labourers directed the milled ore into a sluice which like panning,indeed the gold vein itself,also operated upon the simple premise of gravity.Gold,being a heavier element,sinks to the bottom with other heavy materiel.If the mine operator owned his own rod mill,which was rarely the case,he would have the top materiel,or slag,re-fed into the mill to be re-processed and might repeat the entire process three times before finally discarding it as waste.The heavier bottom materiel is then processed in a hand mill for 2 hours and then deposited in a tank or small pond,mixed with mercury,and allowed to stand for 30 minutes.
Mercury attracts the gold and together the two substances ammalgamate into a unitary substance.The mercury/gold is then filtered repeatedly through cheese cloth which catches the gold.Still highly impure it is combined with additional chemicals,sometimes even common soap,to try and remove as much of the mercury as possible.In the end the still impure substance is bled by oxy/acetylene torch which evaporates the mercury.The result is commercial grade gold.
By 1986 Diwalwal,as it was then universally known by that nickname,began stratifying between smaller and bigger operations.The bigger operations stopped hiring labourers and instead sub-contracted the labour,hiring foremen who were given a fair share of the production and in turn hired their own labourers,provided their own equipment and so on.The usual split between owner and foreman was 50% of the gross after an initial 20% had been skimmed for"Revolutionary Taxes"to the NPA and costs associated with common industrial sized generators and water pumps that were"rented"on a share basis.Out of what amounted to 40% of the gross production the foreman was responsible for 100% of operating costs inside the mine.Post-production costs like milling came out of the owner's 40% gross share.
As this rampant small scale mining continued increasing to the point where Marcopper felt compelled to neutralise these threats to its bottom line and so on April 11th,1986 the company filed a petition with BMG asking the agency to cancel whatever rights and privileges were exercised by DOL holders within Marcopper's 4,941 hectare tenement.The company's attorneys argued that because the gold field lay within a Forest Reserve DOLs were useless.Moreover they claimed that while extraction of mineral resources was permitted in Forest Reserves it was under the auspices of the BGM and NOT the BFD.
Aware that their DOLs lay within the recently granted Marcopper tenement Apex Mining,its partner,Datu Banad's Balite Communal Portal Mining Co-operative and virtually everybody else involved in gold mining on and around Mount Diwalwal was already deeply opposed to the Canandian-based multi-national.By July Apex had been served with a copy of Marcopper's petition.On September 23rd of that year,1986,,Apex responded and in its petition asking that Marcor's request be denied by claiming that the tract was NOT within a Forest Reserve.Finally,on December 9th the BMG ruled on the case,albeit without explaining how a declared Forest Reserve had lapsed,and suprisingly favoured Apex.It dismissed Marcopper's request and declared Exploration Permit #133 to be null and void.
Marcopper,though shocked at the turn of events didn't miss a step as it filed an appeal with the BMG's parent entity,the Department of Environment and Natural Resources,or DENR.On April 15th,1987 the DENR completely overturned its dubsidiary agency's decision.Exploration Permit #133 was restored in full though it ignored the issue at the crux of the dynamic,the multitude of DOLs (Declarations of Location) placed with the BFD (Bureau of Forest Development),all of which lay within the now re-affirmed Marcopper tenement and how the two conflicting permit systems were parceling out the same valuable rights to different people.
Apex then filed the de riguer Petition for Reconsideration with the DENR but was denied.Not willing to roll over it then filed an Appeal with the Office of the President,of then President Corazon"Cory"Aquino.Channeled via the Office's Assistant Executive for Legal Affairs,Cancio C.Garcia it was ultimately dismissed and in his Decision Mr.Garcia made a point to markedly re-affirm the DENR's Decision to restore Exploration Permit #133.
In the larger world around them the NPA on Mindanao had reached its own apex in terms of manpower and organisational accumen.Dilwalwal's Revolutionary Taxes played a crucial role in this parallel exponential increase across the board.Strategically the mountain is a key position,a Regional lynchpin in its role as the bridge between its own Davao Region and the neighbouring Caraga Region.Both Caraga and Davao,then like now,were heavily infiltrated by the Maoist guerilla movement.However,there were four times as many guerillas at the end of the 1980s than there are today.In terms of mass base of support the NPA received an almost universal acclaim...but that was about to change with a two year long reign of terror as the group purged what it believed to be DPAs,or Deep Penetration Agents.
I will continue with this examination of Diwalwal in my next Development Aggression entry,"Development Aggression,Second Quarter of 2011,Part V:Mount Diwalwal,Part 2".
1) Manobo
2) Mandaya
3) Mangguangan
4) Dibabawon
These tribes have inhabited that part of the mountain range since time immemorial.Though gold has been produced and traded there almost as long it didn't adversely effect members of these four tribes until the early 1980s.In August of 1980 Mandaya Tribesmen Datu Camilo"Kamini"Banad began gold panning at a newly discovered site called Bayugan III in the town sharing that name in Agusan del Sur Province.By New Year of 1983 the drought effecting most of the island caused the water levels in the Bayugan River to drop so low that even a manual endeavour like panning for gold became nearly impossible.Holding on as long as he could,by March of that year Banad was forced to return to his home village along the Naboc River in the municipality of Monkayo in the neighbouring province of Davao del Norte,in what is today ComVal,or Compostela Valley Province.
After a non-productive spring and summer Datu Banad decided once again to try his luck panning for gold,beginning in August,this time on the Naboc River itself.Not finding very much of anything he recalled that as a youth,in 1973,he had served as a guide for two Japanese treasure hunters and a Filipino engineer,as they scoured the mountains searching for promising finds.He recalled that on the day their expedition ended they had all been well up river,atop a plateau near the PICOP depot in Sitio Balite.PICOP,or Paper Industries Corporation,held logging concessions over much of Northern Mindanao,feeding their huge paper plants in the neighbouring Region of Caraga.On the day in question the Japanese and their engineer had agreed that 2 kilometers upriver from the depot there was a rich vein of gold.Remembering the conversation Banad resolved to begin searching up river.
On September 21st,1983 Banad and 2 of his fellow villagers,Benjamin Wenceslao and Eugenio"Boy"Avila set off downstream,to throw off the persistent village stragglers who always followed him as he panned the Naboc River.After trekking a considerable distance the three men cut into the jungle and reversed course,upriver,but walking far inland from their village.Reaching the targetted area Datu Bamad instructed his 2 companions to spread out and the three began prospecting.Panning for gold is an incredibly simple process though the actual mechanics,like most any physical act,take a bit of practice.Working on the premise of gravity,using a flat tin pan,a miner scoops up river sand or gravel with just a modicum of water and swirls the contents at a 45 degree angle.By holding it at an angle the heavier sediment in the pan will sink to the bottom.Tipping out the water and excess sediment one keeps swirling the pan's contents until,if one is fortunate,they are left with an iota of gold,usually as dust.Though gold is sometimes found in rivers and creeks,this can only happen when a vein of gold,a large underground deposit of mixed ore,is shattered,exposed to rain or underground streams and then,just as in panning,gravity does the rest.
At the first target site all three men quickly came up with gold dust but because it was late in the day they decided to pack it in and return to their village,after first swearing each other to secrecy.Early the next day,September 22nd,the three men once again feigned as if heading down stream and then retracing their steps made their way to the productive site of the previous day.Again coming up with gold dust rather quickly,Banad decided to try and find the source,the shattered vein of gold.Continuing upstream they eventually passed the now abandoned PICOP depot where Datu Banad had first heard those words 10 years before.Panning again this time their gold dust had large flecks interspersed throughout it,a sure sign that the men were moving in the right direction.In fact,panning was so good that the three decided to bed down for the night so as not to lose the great progress they had made thus far.The next morning,September 23rd the thee men set off before daybreak and began steadily climbing in elevation as they followed the river which had narrowed considerably in the long trek.Before long the river,now little more than a creek,split into 4 feeders,showing the group that they were making progress in their search for the river's headwaters.Now the men panned every other hour and always they achieved more positive results than they had in their previous try.
Walking two hours from where the Naboc River had split into four feeders they reached a high plateau ringed with steep cliff faces.Just past noon they reached the edge of Sitio Balite,an unihabited stretch of jungle that PICOP had just vacated after four years of heavy logging.Just above the plateau was a PICOP bridge,spanning what was now a slow moving,single creek.Not too far away was the PICOP bunkhouse which had quickly fallen into disuse.Here the three men panned again.Starting in sand they were excited to find small nuggets in eack try.Next they tried the creek's gravel bed and there too they found decently sized gold nuggets.It was clear to Banad that the PICOP logging road had been constructed through a gold field,shattering part of the vein.He knew it was the logging road because had it been an old shattering by earthquake there would be very little gold in the gravel bed,it would be instead in residual deposits in sand along the stream bed's edges.Knowing they were very close to a rich find Banad had Avila prepare lunch.Afterwards he had Wenceslao head upstream,and asked him to look and see if the logging road traversed the mountain at any higher elevations.If so Banad said,begin panning just below the road.As Weceslao departed upstream Avila and Banad busied themselves at their present site.
Later that afternoon Wenceslao returned and confirmed that indeed PICOP did have a segment of that newly constructed logging road located near the top of the mountain.With that the 3 rushed upstream reaching it as the sun sat low in the sky.Still,before nightfall the 3 had recovered enough gold dust,flecks and nuggets to fill a small bottle.Wenceslao had,under Banad's direction,discovered the motherlode.
The source stood almost atop Bundok Diwata,or Mount Diwata.The mountain,which gave the entire mountain range its name was known locally as"Bundok Diwalwal,"a play on its actual name.While"Diwata"means"Idol,"as in"religious idol,""Diwalwal"means"Absolutely Exhausted,"named as such for the feelings it generated whenever someone hiked the trail in its entierty.
The next day,a bottle of gold in hand,the three men happily returned home after once again swearing each other to secrecy.Though the three men continued prospecting at the source for another satisfying three weeks,word of the fortuitous discovery spread quickly.Fearing being shut out of their own discovery,Banad,Avila,and Wenceslao jointly filed six separate DOLs,or Declarations of Location,with the BFD (Bureau of Forest Development).DOLs are effectively Prospecting Claims.Following suit other villagers began to file DOLs of their own.In fact,it got to the point where Datu Banad began growing paranoid that one of them,and not him,had staked a claim on the motherlode.With this in mind Banad gathered his fellow villagers and convinced them that they could all increase their chances of striking it rich by forming a partnership.Taking the villagers that agreed with him Banad formed the Balite Communal Portal Mining Corporation,or BCPMC.
By December,less than 60 days later,local clans from all 4 of the tribes living on and around the mountain had begun following suit,filing DOLs of their own up and down the Naboc River.With the flurry in claims came a barrage of disadvantageous offers that tried to manipulate the cooperative into a weak position.Still,Banad lacked the neccessary business savvy and technical know-how needed for a successful endeavour.Realising that not only was he himself in way over his head but that he had led his people into a very vulnerable position as well,Datu Banad began looking for ways in which to navigate what was for him uncharted waters.With more than a little trepidation then he took the plunge and on December 12th,1983 he entered into a Joint Operating Agreement with Apex Mining.Just after New Year,January of 1984,PICOP attempted to re-assert what it felt were its rights inherent within their timberconcession and closed the single logging road leading upcountry into Sitio Balite.Even without a road more and more people crowded the small mountain each day.Then,on February 2nd,1984 local agents filed sixteen separate DOLs for the Marcopper Mining Corporation,all of which were contigious to those filed by Datu Banad's Balite Communal Portal Mining Company,or BCPMC.Marcopper,a subsidiary of the Canadian-based multi-national giant Placer Dome,was the company who would single handedly create the worst mining disaster in world history when 12 million metric tonnes of tailings flowed into a 26 kilometer long river on the Philippine island of Marinduque when an improperly constructed dam gave way,though that was still more than a decade into the future.
By the Summer of 1985 the once isolated village of less than 600 Tribesmen was bursting at the seems with an estimated 20,000 people from every corner of the Philippines.Anytime gold is discovered in a new place people will embellish their stories of newly found riches so that by the end of their tall tale people are already considering making a go of it themselves.Still,even without the gross exaggeration that always accompanies a recent discovery Mount Diwalwal truly is a motherlode.In a country where the average wage is less than 300 Pesos a day in 2011,nearly 30 years after its discovery,the mountain still produces well over 6,000 Pesos a day for each independent prospector.By law all small scale miners at Diwalwal must sell their yield through the Davao City Station of the Banko ng Sentral (Central Bank of the Philippines) which reports well over P2 Billion in purchases a year just out of a 729 hectare site atop the mountain.It is no wonder then that people continuously flocked to thesite in those heady early years,causing the community to increase exponentially with total disregard for planning and infrastructure.As with all small scale mining communities of any size brothels,bars and drug dealing became very well entrenched incredibly early on.
By 1985 Marcopper's attorneys had performed their due dilligence and had learned that in 1931 then Governor-General of the Philippines,Dwight F.Davis,had issued Proclamation #369 creating the"Agusan-Davao-Surigao Forest Reserve."The 1,927,400 hectare reservation covered the length of the island,from north to south.Within this vast tract lay Mount Diwalwal.According to Philippine Law,mining rights within Forest Reserves fall under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Mining and Geosciences,or BMG (today known as the MGB),with whom one must file for a Prospecting Permit (as opposed to the aforementioned DOL which offers the same legal protections).Ergo,a DOL through the BFD was useless.Realising this all-important information Marcopper abandoned its sixteen DOLs and immediately filed for Prospecting Permits instead.On July 1st,1985 Marcopper received its nervously awaited Permits covering a grand total of 4,941.67 hectares that extended across the provincial line into Davao del Norte's municipality of Cateel.Interestingly,showing a huge disconnect between BMG's parent entity the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Bureau of Forest Development the Prospecting Permits fully encompassed every single one of the DOLs issued thus far.This would be the start of a geopolitical clusterfuc* that continues up until the present.Handing out the same parcel of land to different groups is never smart but doing so when that parcel happens to contain some of the world's most valuable gold fields is insane.
Just 4 months later,on November 11th,1985,moving at the speed of light Marcopper applied for an Exploratory Permit.Lo and behold,on March 10th,1986 the Bureau of Mines and Geo-Sciences (BMG) issued Marcopper a two year Exploration Permit,#133,and the company began sinking test holes.Drilling into the mountain they took core samples which aside from confirming the obvious presence of gold also revealed the quality of the metal.The company was astounded,it had almost blindly stumbled into one of the planet's most profitable gold fields.When BGM issued this permit there were already nearly 80,000 people living in a squatter settlement stretching 6 kilometers out from the mountain on all sides.Mining had proliferated to such a degree that it now encompassed more than 10,000 hectares and houses sat atop tunnels creating a potential deadly disaster.
Competition was so keen that adits,or side tunnels off of the portal,or main tunnel,often collapsed because of parallel adits from competitors being excavated mere centimeters away.Despite the huge buildup the mining was relegated to rudimentary methodology.24 hours a day tunnels barely wide enough for a skinny adult held 5 to 6 labourers,sometimes as young as 8 or 9 years of age.Placed head to toe the labourers worked with shovels,picks, mallets,and even chisels to separate ore from the tunnel walls.Filling half-sacks,nylon rice bags holding up to 45 kilograms of materiel they would signal when their bag was full and each labourer would crawl out backwards,centimeter by centimeter as the miner in question dragged their bag of rocks.Placing the sack at the collection point the labourer would re-enter his tunnel,this time near the entrance with the other labourers having quickly crawled back in since they were paid by the bag.
At the collection point young boys and elderly men,sometimes women,swung sledge hammers,mallets and carpenter's hammers as they pulverised the contents of each sack,having first dumped the contents onto the ground.Re-bagging the pulverised contents they hauled the 45 kilogram sacks on their back to rod mills,whose own labourers fed the contents into the mill.For 4 hours the mills ground the ore after which the mill labourers directed the milled ore into a sluice which like panning,indeed the gold vein itself,also operated upon the simple premise of gravity.Gold,being a heavier element,sinks to the bottom with other heavy materiel.If the mine operator owned his own rod mill,which was rarely the case,he would have the top materiel,or slag,re-fed into the mill to be re-processed and might repeat the entire process three times before finally discarding it as waste.The heavier bottom materiel is then processed in a hand mill for 2 hours and then deposited in a tank or small pond,mixed with mercury,and allowed to stand for 30 minutes.
Mercury attracts the gold and together the two substances ammalgamate into a unitary substance.The mercury/gold is then filtered repeatedly through cheese cloth which catches the gold.Still highly impure it is combined with additional chemicals,sometimes even common soap,to try and remove as much of the mercury as possible.In the end the still impure substance is bled by oxy/acetylene torch which evaporates the mercury.The result is commercial grade gold.
By 1986 Diwalwal,as it was then universally known by that nickname,began stratifying between smaller and bigger operations.The bigger operations stopped hiring labourers and instead sub-contracted the labour,hiring foremen who were given a fair share of the production and in turn hired their own labourers,provided their own equipment and so on.The usual split between owner and foreman was 50% of the gross after an initial 20% had been skimmed for"Revolutionary Taxes"to the NPA and costs associated with common industrial sized generators and water pumps that were"rented"on a share basis.Out of what amounted to 40% of the gross production the foreman was responsible for 100% of operating costs inside the mine.Post-production costs like milling came out of the owner's 40% gross share.
As this rampant small scale mining continued increasing to the point where Marcopper felt compelled to neutralise these threats to its bottom line and so on April 11th,1986 the company filed a petition with BMG asking the agency to cancel whatever rights and privileges were exercised by DOL holders within Marcopper's 4,941 hectare tenement.The company's attorneys argued that because the gold field lay within a Forest Reserve DOLs were useless.Moreover they claimed that while extraction of mineral resources was permitted in Forest Reserves it was under the auspices of the BGM and NOT the BFD.
Aware that their DOLs lay within the recently granted Marcopper tenement Apex Mining,its partner,Datu Banad's Balite Communal Portal Mining Co-operative and virtually everybody else involved in gold mining on and around Mount Diwalwal was already deeply opposed to the Canandian-based multi-national.By July Apex had been served with a copy of Marcopper's petition.On September 23rd of that year,1986,,Apex responded and in its petition asking that Marcor's request be denied by claiming that the tract was NOT within a Forest Reserve.Finally,on December 9th the BMG ruled on the case,albeit without explaining how a declared Forest Reserve had lapsed,and suprisingly favoured Apex.It dismissed Marcopper's request and declared Exploration Permit #133 to be null and void.
Marcopper,though shocked at the turn of events didn't miss a step as it filed an appeal with the BMG's parent entity,the Department of Environment and Natural Resources,or DENR.On April 15th,1987 the DENR completely overturned its dubsidiary agency's decision.Exploration Permit #133 was restored in full though it ignored the issue at the crux of the dynamic,the multitude of DOLs (Declarations of Location) placed with the BFD (Bureau of Forest Development),all of which lay within the now re-affirmed Marcopper tenement and how the two conflicting permit systems were parceling out the same valuable rights to different people.
Apex then filed the de riguer Petition for Reconsideration with the DENR but was denied.Not willing to roll over it then filed an Appeal with the Office of the President,of then President Corazon"Cory"Aquino.Channeled via the Office's Assistant Executive for Legal Affairs,Cancio C.Garcia it was ultimately dismissed and in his Decision Mr.Garcia made a point to markedly re-affirm the DENR's Decision to restore Exploration Permit #133.
In the larger world around them the NPA on Mindanao had reached its own apex in terms of manpower and organisational accumen.Dilwalwal's Revolutionary Taxes played a crucial role in this parallel exponential increase across the board.Strategically the mountain is a key position,a Regional lynchpin in its role as the bridge between its own Davao Region and the neighbouring Caraga Region.Both Caraga and Davao,then like now,were heavily infiltrated by the Maoist guerilla movement.However,there were four times as many guerillas at the end of the 1980s than there are today.In terms of mass base of support the NPA received an almost universal acclaim...but that was about to change with a two year long reign of terror as the group purged what it believed to be DPAs,or Deep Penetration Agents.
I will continue with this examination of Diwalwal in my next Development Aggression entry,"Development Aggression,Second Quarter of 2011,Part V:Mount Diwalwal,Part 2".
Friday, June 24, 2011
NPA Armed Contacts,Second Quarter of 2011,Part IV:More Killing in ComVal
ComVal,or Compostela Valley Province,was created out of the northern portion of Davao del Norte Province.While still included in the Davao Region it directly abuts Agusan del Sur Province which is a part of Caraga Region (Region 13).Dominated by the Diwata Mountain Range the area is home to some of the world's richest gold fields.As I noted in my preceding NPA entry,"NPA Armed Contacts,Second Quarter of 2011,Part III,"the presence of gold has created a lot of difficult problems both in governance as well for the people living there.To a lesser extent illegal logging also presents a vexing problem,one that increases a great deal as you move north into Caraga.
Caraga,encompassing both of the Agusan and Surigao Provinces (del Sur and del Norte for each) as well as the newly certified island province of Dinagat,is the most heavily forested Region in the nation.Just as an over-abundance of natural resources creates a lot of misery in ComVal,likewise those forested mountains and valleys in Caraga bring with it a huge amount of misery.As I have noted in my last couple of Development Aggression entries,on February 2nd,2011 President Aquino issued Executive Order #23 (EO#23),which put the brakes on all logging of First and Second Growth Forests across the entire nation.Of course this admirable Executive Decision does absolutely nothing to put a dent in the astronomically huge business of illegal logging.
Towards that end Regional DENR (Department of the Environment and Natural Resources) Offices have begun undertaking aggressive action to try and lessen the damaging impact of what really does amount to a scourge on the nation.DENR-13,or as it is known locally,DENR-Caraga,enlisted the help of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) with the knowledge that a fair number of illegal logging outfits in Caraga are tied into well armed paramilitaries.Though these private armed groups are obstensibly pro-Government they are much more so pro-profit.If it is a choice between the flag and their bank book the former hasn't a chance,ergo the big guns of the AFP.
On June 7th,2011 DENR-Caraga rendevouzed with elements of the AFP's 26IB (Infantry Battalion) and the 3SFBn (3rd Special Forces Battalion,known as"Airborne"despite the lack of parachute accumen), 9 COY (9th Company) at CAA 2nd Platoon Garrison in the municipality of Laak's Barangay Melale,in ComVal. (CAA being Civilian Active Auxiliary,collectively a group of entities that serve as geographically localised Reserve Forces,in this case the element being CAFGU,the Civilian Auxiliary Force Geographical Unit.CAA is the cornerstone of the AFP Counterinsurgency Programme).After a Briefing the troops rolled out,heading into Caraga,just over the border in the municipality of Loreto,in Agusan del Sur Province.The Airborne contingent boarded an M35 truck and left a bit after their compatriots from the 26IB.
As the truck crossed into Barangay Belmonte it entered the jungle.As the sun began to appear on the horizon a fussilade rang out from the trees around them hitting 5 soldiers almost immediately.Within minutes the shooting stopped and the NPA's Front 34,Davao-Agusan Command,withdrew further into the jungle.Aside from 3 soldiers critically wounded,2 had been killed:
1) PFC.(Private First Class) Werlito de Claro,22,of Esperanza in Sultan Kudarat Province,shot in the chest
2) PFC.Jefferson Galang,from Baguio City on Luzon,shot in the head.
Though off to a tragic start the DENR Operation lasted until June 10th and was violent in and of itself but I will relegate that to another Development Aggression entry.
In my last NPA Armed Contacts AND Development Aggression entries I focused on the municipality of Pantukan,also in ComVal.It has been a rough couple of months for that small town.On Good Friday,April 23rd they were hit with a devastating landslide that killed scores of small scale miners.There have also been several Extra-Judicial Killings related to mining that I haven't even begun to discuss and then of course,the NPA which like a leech attaches itself to any money making venture within its AOR (Area of Resoinsibility,in this case synonymous with Area of Operation).As should be expected then the town is racking up more Contacts than any other municipality on the island.On June 19th,in Pantukan's Barangay Napnapan,in Sitio Paisusuan,a column from the 71IB under 1Lt.(First Lieutenant) Abelardo Silva was on patrol when they walked into an NPA ambush by roughly 70 guerillas from Front 2,the Crucifino Uballas Command.Silva and 7 of his men were hit,with 1 soldier,Guyre P.Puyao of Benguet Province on Luzon dying.
That same day,June 19th,in ComVal's capitol of Nabunturan,PDT (Peace and Development) Teams 4 and 6 from the 25IB were working in Barangay Bayabas' Sitio Handuromug when they were ambushed.After a 45 minute firefight the NPA brokeoff and withdrew.Miraculously no casualties came out of it.PDTs are a new innovation,first implemented by the AFP in September of 2010.After what the AFP considers to be a smashing success in Savao Region they have entered operations in 3 of Mindanao's ensconced IDs (Infantry Divisions).They are simply stock CMOs,or Civil-Military Operations.In teams of 9 soldiers each they enter targetted villages,or barangays,and after an initial intelligence gathering euphamistically dressed up as a"Census to assess the needs of under-served villagers"the team(s) fan out and paint a school,etc.There is nothing wrong with having soldiers serve communities,all able militaries engage in CMOs,but the AFP hasn't changed its mindset.The same deep-seated problems that have allowed insurgency to fester on Mindanao for a full half a century persist and worsen regardless if the one roomed school house has a dazzling new coat of army-olive acrylic paint.
Also on June 19th,in the neighbouring town of Mabini,also in Comval,a sawmill owned by local attorney Henry Sembrano was burned to the ground by the NPA in Barangay Cuambog.Mr.Sembrano refused to pay his Revolutionary Taxes...I mean his extortion...I mean Revolutionary Taxes.
Caraga,encompassing both of the Agusan and Surigao Provinces (del Sur and del Norte for each) as well as the newly certified island province of Dinagat,is the most heavily forested Region in the nation.Just as an over-abundance of natural resources creates a lot of misery in ComVal,likewise those forested mountains and valleys in Caraga bring with it a huge amount of misery.As I have noted in my last couple of Development Aggression entries,on February 2nd,2011 President Aquino issued Executive Order #23 (EO#23),which put the brakes on all logging of First and Second Growth Forests across the entire nation.Of course this admirable Executive Decision does absolutely nothing to put a dent in the astronomically huge business of illegal logging.
Towards that end Regional DENR (Department of the Environment and Natural Resources) Offices have begun undertaking aggressive action to try and lessen the damaging impact of what really does amount to a scourge on the nation.DENR-13,or as it is known locally,DENR-Caraga,enlisted the help of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) with the knowledge that a fair number of illegal logging outfits in Caraga are tied into well armed paramilitaries.Though these private armed groups are obstensibly pro-Government they are much more so pro-profit.If it is a choice between the flag and their bank book the former hasn't a chance,ergo the big guns of the AFP.
On June 7th,2011 DENR-Caraga rendevouzed with elements of the AFP's 26IB (Infantry Battalion) and the 3SFBn (3rd Special Forces Battalion,known as"Airborne"despite the lack of parachute accumen), 9 COY (9th Company) at CAA 2nd Platoon Garrison in the municipality of Laak's Barangay Melale,in ComVal. (CAA being Civilian Active Auxiliary,collectively a group of entities that serve as geographically localised Reserve Forces,in this case the element being CAFGU,the Civilian Auxiliary Force Geographical Unit.CAA is the cornerstone of the AFP Counterinsurgency Programme).After a Briefing the troops rolled out,heading into Caraga,just over the border in the municipality of Loreto,in Agusan del Sur Province.The Airborne contingent boarded an M35 truck and left a bit after their compatriots from the 26IB.
As the truck crossed into Barangay Belmonte it entered the jungle.As the sun began to appear on the horizon a fussilade rang out from the trees around them hitting 5 soldiers almost immediately.Within minutes the shooting stopped and the NPA's Front 34,Davao-Agusan Command,withdrew further into the jungle.Aside from 3 soldiers critically wounded,2 had been killed:
1) PFC.(Private First Class) Werlito de Claro,22,of Esperanza in Sultan Kudarat Province,shot in the chest
2) PFC.Jefferson Galang,from Baguio City on Luzon,shot in the head.
Though off to a tragic start the DENR Operation lasted until June 10th and was violent in and of itself but I will relegate that to another Development Aggression entry.
In my last NPA Armed Contacts AND Development Aggression entries I focused on the municipality of Pantukan,also in ComVal.It has been a rough couple of months for that small town.On Good Friday,April 23rd they were hit with a devastating landslide that killed scores of small scale miners.There have also been several Extra-Judicial Killings related to mining that I haven't even begun to discuss and then of course,the NPA which like a leech attaches itself to any money making venture within its AOR (Area of Resoinsibility,in this case synonymous with Area of Operation).As should be expected then the town is racking up more Contacts than any other municipality on the island.On June 19th,in Pantukan's Barangay Napnapan,in Sitio Paisusuan,a column from the 71IB under 1Lt.(First Lieutenant) Abelardo Silva was on patrol when they walked into an NPA ambush by roughly 70 guerillas from Front 2,the Crucifino Uballas Command.Silva and 7 of his men were hit,with 1 soldier,Guyre P.Puyao of Benguet Province on Luzon dying.
That same day,June 19th,in ComVal's capitol of Nabunturan,PDT (Peace and Development) Teams 4 and 6 from the 25IB were working in Barangay Bayabas' Sitio Handuromug when they were ambushed.After a 45 minute firefight the NPA brokeoff and withdrew.Miraculously no casualties came out of it.PDTs are a new innovation,first implemented by the AFP in September of 2010.After what the AFP considers to be a smashing success in Savao Region they have entered operations in 3 of Mindanao's ensconced IDs (Infantry Divisions).They are simply stock CMOs,or Civil-Military Operations.In teams of 9 soldiers each they enter targetted villages,or barangays,and after an initial intelligence gathering euphamistically dressed up as a"Census to assess the needs of under-served villagers"the team(s) fan out and paint a school,etc.There is nothing wrong with having soldiers serve communities,all able militaries engage in CMOs,but the AFP hasn't changed its mindset.The same deep-seated problems that have allowed insurgency to fester on Mindanao for a full half a century persist and worsen regardless if the one roomed school house has a dazzling new coat of army-olive acrylic paint.
Also on June 19th,in the neighbouring town of Mabini,also in Comval,a sawmill owned by local attorney Henry Sembrano was burned to the ground by the NPA in Barangay Cuambog.Mr.Sembrano refused to pay his Revolutionary Taxes...I mean his extortion...I mean Revolutionary Taxes.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
NPA Armed Contacts,Second Quarter of 2011,Part III:More Misery in Pantukan
In two recent "Development Aggression" entries I covered both the Good Friday Landslide in the municipality of Pantukan in ComVal (Compostela Valley Province) as well as the subsequent issues with the American-based multi-national that is attempting to mine there, Russell Mining. Pantukan is like so many of the communities in the Diwata Mountain Range. Blessed with almost unimaginable beauty they are simultaneously cursed with an over-abundance of natural resources. Some might be scratching their heads, wondering just how there can ever be an "over-abundance" of natural resources...
To digress for a moment,if one were to poll laymen and ask them what the number one cause of war and conflict has been throughout the history of man they would more than likely say, "Religion." Of course that seems like a fair answer but it is absolutely incorrect. The cause of almost every single conflict that has wracked this planet has been natural resources,or to be specific, control of those natural resources. Religion is sometimes used as the ideological vehicle but it isn't the actual impetus.
Segueing back to the Diwata Mountains...Gold more often than not brings only misery. It attracts the worst of humanity. Huge communities spring up around its source and for a brief while there is hope. Yet anywhere one finds fast money they also will find people who aim to live like parasites, off of the good fortune of others. Pimps,drug dealers...Corruption abounds, from those sworn to protect like the AFP and PNP (Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police) to those sworn to serve their communities in other ways, like politicians and civil servants.
Seeing vulnerable,ill communities insurgents are drawn to such places as centres of gravity, or ground zero in that particular dynamic. The NPA,or New People's Army, is drawn to such places for several reasons. The top two reasons are equally important; first, boom towns present a myriad of funding possibilities. "Revolutionary Taxes" are little more than Protection Rackets that target a vulnerable demographic. Living amongst a corrupt security apparattus what can a targetted business man or company really do? There is no choice but to pay up and pay they do. The average rate of "Taxation" for a multi-national corporation mining the Diwata Mountains averages a neat P1 Million ($22,000) PER MONTH. The NPA loves to tell anyone who listens that they are battling against foreign-based corporations who aim to siphon off the nation's patrimony as the poor Lumad (generic term applied to all Animist Hilltribes on Mindanao) are lucky if they even net 2 or 3 years of backbreaking labour at not much above the minimum wage.
The truth of the matter is that the NPA wants these multi-national bloodsuckers working these hills just as bad as the Government sitting in Manila does. Both are just as greedy and both have exactly the same endgame, control of the central axis of power and to gain this, or in the Government's case to retain this, they need money, lots of money.
The second reason is that the multi-nationals are a large cog in the dynamic that creates these battered mountain communities. What better pool of recruits could the NPA ever hope for? Let's see...on one hand you have an existence of pathetic misery with a life expectancy of 47 years with 1 meal a day of white rice and Bitter Melon (Ampalaya)...or a life as a guerilla where you are led to believe you are working to help create a world where everyone will have enough to eat and enough money to live. Naturally the life of a gueriila is many more times attractive and this is why the bast bulk of the NPA's forces on Mindanao are Lumad.
On May 4th, 2011 in Pantukan's Barangay Tibagon three columns from the 71IB (Infantry Battalion) were on patrol when they walked right into an NPA ambush courtesy of Front 2, the Crucifino Uballas Command. As is so often the case it began with an IED (Improvised Explosive Device,as in "bomb") that immediately killed the soldier on point (the soldier walking at the lead of one of the columns). In the 55 minute long firefight that followed 2 more soldiers were critically wounded. The AFP, trying as always to use its scraps for propaganda value claimed that the heartless NPA senselessly attacked an AFP element as it engaged in Search and Rescue Operations relating to that aforementioned Good Friday Landslide. Uh,guys? The landslide was in Barangay Kingking, the soldiers in this contact were in Barangay Tibagon. More over, Search and Rescue Operations ended 2 days earlier and don't involve three columned formations. People DO pay attention to the facts so the AFP should at least try to spin its dirtywork intelligently.
Speaking of Barangay Kingking though...On May 12th in that barangay's Sitio Maplog,near the border of Sitio Lawa'an the NPA's 3rd Pulang Bagani (Red Warrior) Company of the Merardo Arce Command (SMRC,as in Southern Mindanao Regional Committee) implemented an impromptu checkpoint.Shortly thereafter 4 motorcycles were stopped. All 4 were driven by SCAA soldiers employed by Saint Augustine Copper and Gold. Saint Augustine is a joint venture that serves as the aforementioned Russell Mining and its local partner NADECOR's (National Development Corporation) local operating entity. Philippine Laws require all foreign owned companies to engage a local partner in sn advantageous 60:40 split, in favour of the locally owned company. To try and maximise this disadvantageous relationship a multi-national will sometimes create a local operating entity,hence Saint Augustine.
On the morning in question a company geologist was on his way to examine a test hole.SCAA,or Special Citizens Active Auxiliary, is 1 of the 4 CAA (Citizens Active Auxiliaries) entities used by the AFP as the cornerstone of its Counterinsurgency Programe. While many Filipinos are quite familiar with another of the CAA entities,the CAFGU,or Citizens Active Geographical Force Unit, the SCAA remains a mystery to most.The are privately funded by business owners but trained and equipped by the AFP.While CAFGU will almost always have extremely old M1s (Garand 30 caliber) the SCAA almost always carries AFP quality weaponry (not that the AFP has anything really effective). Because CAAs on average have but 45 days of extremely minimal training and tend to carry AFP quality weaponry they are a primary target of NPA tactical assaults.
As the 4 motorcycles neared the checkpoint,with the geologist riding tandem on one,they realised too late that they were trapped.One SCAA soldier immediately dumped his bike and ran off into the jungle.A second,CAA Casiano,stupidly reached for the M4 carbine on his back and was shot to death.The other 2 CAAs and the geologist fully complied and the NPA captured three M4 carbines and three ICOM V87s (walkie-talkies). It was initially believed that the fourth CAA,the one who ran off into the jungle,had been captured or killed by the NPA but he surfaced after nightfall, 14 hours later.Apparently,in his blind fear he ran headlong through the jungle and clear over a cliff. Luckily for the CAA the cliff face turned into an incline several meters down and some scrub vegetation broke his fall. Other than some scratches and bruises he is none the worse for the wear.
Russell slash Saint Augustine holds a 600 hectare tract that spans parts of Barangay Kingking and an adjoining barangay. It is interesting that the geologist was up and about considering that the Provincial Government had specifically issued the outfit a Stop Work Order, or as it is called in the Philippines, a Cease and Desist Order some weeks before. The issue at the centre of the Order is the company's failure to address illegal encroachment upon its tenement by small scale miners. Though Russell doesn't hold paper on the portion of barangay Kingking that suffered the April 23rd landslide its tenement is also swarming with fly by night operators hoping to turn a fast profit. It would seem counter intuitive for a huge mining corporation to not act when people engage in what amounts to bold faced theft but the companies are only concerned with the bottom line.
If you are the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of a multi-national mining corporation and you have a tract producing say 14 Million US Dollars a month...but end up losing 1.2 Million US more from poaching small scale miners you need to do a cost:benefit analysis. If you turn the SCAA on them you will have what amounts to a sub-conflit (small war) on your operation's doorstep. If you are a publicly held corporation it will murder your share price as well as your stockholders' portfolio...If it expands to AFP participation the government might just clamp down on you. There are a plethora of less than savoury outcomes and so parasitic small scale miners are endured. If you are an LGU (Local Government Unit,as in municipal or provincial government) executive you don't have such freedom.Landslides that kill dozens every few months ON TOP of the social ills such a trade produces by relation arent worth stomaching,ergo the Order handed down by Governor Uy.
The NPA spin meisters justified the "operation" by pointing out that a local tribesman,Santos Manrique,had been killed just a couple of weeks before. Mr.Manrique was a very vocal opponent of the Russell tenement and his death is widely believed to be linked to that opposition. In reality Saint Augustine has refused to pay its Revolutionary Taxes. This in turn means that the NPA has declared open season on the company.
Just two days after the checkpoint incident, on May 14th, in that same barangay,Kingking,a routine torture...I mean interrogation of a villager by the 71IB revealed that 2 men had been seen laying a weapons cache in a newly dug pit. Carefully excavating the hole the soldiers discovered 8 IEDs in rice sacks. The IEDs had identical signatures as the device that recently killed 3 in the neighbouring town of Maco, in addition to wounding 7.
To digress for a moment,if one were to poll laymen and ask them what the number one cause of war and conflict has been throughout the history of man they would more than likely say, "Religion." Of course that seems like a fair answer but it is absolutely incorrect. The cause of almost every single conflict that has wracked this planet has been natural resources,or to be specific, control of those natural resources. Religion is sometimes used as the ideological vehicle but it isn't the actual impetus.
Segueing back to the Diwata Mountains...Gold more often than not brings only misery. It attracts the worst of humanity. Huge communities spring up around its source and for a brief while there is hope. Yet anywhere one finds fast money they also will find people who aim to live like parasites, off of the good fortune of others. Pimps,drug dealers...Corruption abounds, from those sworn to protect like the AFP and PNP (Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police) to those sworn to serve their communities in other ways, like politicians and civil servants.
Seeing vulnerable,ill communities insurgents are drawn to such places as centres of gravity, or ground zero in that particular dynamic. The NPA,or New People's Army, is drawn to such places for several reasons. The top two reasons are equally important; first, boom towns present a myriad of funding possibilities. "Revolutionary Taxes" are little more than Protection Rackets that target a vulnerable demographic. Living amongst a corrupt security apparattus what can a targetted business man or company really do? There is no choice but to pay up and pay they do. The average rate of "Taxation" for a multi-national corporation mining the Diwata Mountains averages a neat P1 Million ($22,000) PER MONTH. The NPA loves to tell anyone who listens that they are battling against foreign-based corporations who aim to siphon off the nation's patrimony as the poor Lumad (generic term applied to all Animist Hilltribes on Mindanao) are lucky if they even net 2 or 3 years of backbreaking labour at not much above the minimum wage.
The truth of the matter is that the NPA wants these multi-national bloodsuckers working these hills just as bad as the Government sitting in Manila does. Both are just as greedy and both have exactly the same endgame, control of the central axis of power and to gain this, or in the Government's case to retain this, they need money, lots of money.
The second reason is that the multi-nationals are a large cog in the dynamic that creates these battered mountain communities. What better pool of recruits could the NPA ever hope for? Let's see...on one hand you have an existence of pathetic misery with a life expectancy of 47 years with 1 meal a day of white rice and Bitter Melon (Ampalaya)...or a life as a guerilla where you are led to believe you are working to help create a world where everyone will have enough to eat and enough money to live. Naturally the life of a gueriila is many more times attractive and this is why the bast bulk of the NPA's forces on Mindanao are Lumad.
On May 4th, 2011 in Pantukan's Barangay Tibagon three columns from the 71IB (Infantry Battalion) were on patrol when they walked right into an NPA ambush courtesy of Front 2, the Crucifino Uballas Command. As is so often the case it began with an IED (Improvised Explosive Device,as in "bomb") that immediately killed the soldier on point (the soldier walking at the lead of one of the columns). In the 55 minute long firefight that followed 2 more soldiers were critically wounded. The AFP, trying as always to use its scraps for propaganda value claimed that the heartless NPA senselessly attacked an AFP element as it engaged in Search and Rescue Operations relating to that aforementioned Good Friday Landslide. Uh,guys? The landslide was in Barangay Kingking, the soldiers in this contact were in Barangay Tibagon. More over, Search and Rescue Operations ended 2 days earlier and don't involve three columned formations. People DO pay attention to the facts so the AFP should at least try to spin its dirtywork intelligently.
Speaking of Barangay Kingking though...On May 12th in that barangay's Sitio Maplog,near the border of Sitio Lawa'an the NPA's 3rd Pulang Bagani (Red Warrior) Company of the Merardo Arce Command (SMRC,as in Southern Mindanao Regional Committee) implemented an impromptu checkpoint.Shortly thereafter 4 motorcycles were stopped. All 4 were driven by SCAA soldiers employed by Saint Augustine Copper and Gold. Saint Augustine is a joint venture that serves as the aforementioned Russell Mining and its local partner NADECOR's (National Development Corporation) local operating entity. Philippine Laws require all foreign owned companies to engage a local partner in sn advantageous 60:40 split, in favour of the locally owned company. To try and maximise this disadvantageous relationship a multi-national will sometimes create a local operating entity,hence Saint Augustine.
On the morning in question a company geologist was on his way to examine a test hole.SCAA,or Special Citizens Active Auxiliary, is 1 of the 4 CAA (Citizens Active Auxiliaries) entities used by the AFP as the cornerstone of its Counterinsurgency Programe. While many Filipinos are quite familiar with another of the CAA entities,the CAFGU,or Citizens Active Geographical Force Unit, the SCAA remains a mystery to most.The are privately funded by business owners but trained and equipped by the AFP.While CAFGU will almost always have extremely old M1s (Garand 30 caliber) the SCAA almost always carries AFP quality weaponry (not that the AFP has anything really effective). Because CAAs on average have but 45 days of extremely minimal training and tend to carry AFP quality weaponry they are a primary target of NPA tactical assaults.
As the 4 motorcycles neared the checkpoint,with the geologist riding tandem on one,they realised too late that they were trapped.One SCAA soldier immediately dumped his bike and ran off into the jungle.A second,CAA Casiano,stupidly reached for the M4 carbine on his back and was shot to death.The other 2 CAAs and the geologist fully complied and the NPA captured three M4 carbines and three ICOM V87s (walkie-talkies). It was initially believed that the fourth CAA,the one who ran off into the jungle,had been captured or killed by the NPA but he surfaced after nightfall, 14 hours later.Apparently,in his blind fear he ran headlong through the jungle and clear over a cliff. Luckily for the CAA the cliff face turned into an incline several meters down and some scrub vegetation broke his fall. Other than some scratches and bruises he is none the worse for the wear.
Russell slash Saint Augustine holds a 600 hectare tract that spans parts of Barangay Kingking and an adjoining barangay. It is interesting that the geologist was up and about considering that the Provincial Government had specifically issued the outfit a Stop Work Order, or as it is called in the Philippines, a Cease and Desist Order some weeks before. The issue at the centre of the Order is the company's failure to address illegal encroachment upon its tenement by small scale miners. Though Russell doesn't hold paper on the portion of barangay Kingking that suffered the April 23rd landslide its tenement is also swarming with fly by night operators hoping to turn a fast profit. It would seem counter intuitive for a huge mining corporation to not act when people engage in what amounts to bold faced theft but the companies are only concerned with the bottom line.
If you are the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of a multi-national mining corporation and you have a tract producing say 14 Million US Dollars a month...but end up losing 1.2 Million US more from poaching small scale miners you need to do a cost:benefit analysis. If you turn the SCAA on them you will have what amounts to a sub-conflit (small war) on your operation's doorstep. If you are a publicly held corporation it will murder your share price as well as your stockholders' portfolio...If it expands to AFP participation the government might just clamp down on you. There are a plethora of less than savoury outcomes and so parasitic small scale miners are endured. If you are an LGU (Local Government Unit,as in municipal or provincial government) executive you don't have such freedom.Landslides that kill dozens every few months ON TOP of the social ills such a trade produces by relation arent worth stomaching,ergo the Order handed down by Governor Uy.
The NPA spin meisters justified the "operation" by pointing out that a local tribesman,Santos Manrique,had been killed just a couple of weeks before. Mr.Manrique was a very vocal opponent of the Russell tenement and his death is widely believed to be linked to that opposition. In reality Saint Augustine has refused to pay its Revolutionary Taxes. This in turn means that the NPA has declared open season on the company.
Just two days after the checkpoint incident, on May 14th, in that same barangay,Kingking,a routine torture...I mean interrogation of a villager by the 71IB revealed that 2 men had been seen laying a weapons cache in a newly dug pit. Carefully excavating the hole the soldiers discovered 8 IEDs in rice sacks. The IEDs had identical signatures as the device that recently killed 3 in the neighbouring town of Maco, in addition to wounding 7.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Development Aggression,Second Quarter of 2011,Part III:Landslide in Pantukan Kills 23
This past summer,2010,the nation suffered severe drought which has been attributed to the weather phenomenon"El Nino."As in all"Nino"years,his sister La Nina follows quickly and comes barreling in with an early and exaggerated Northeast Monsoon.Coming before its time,this extra-heavy Monsoon replaces the normally dry,crisp air of winter ("crisp"being a relative term in the tropics) and instead we are subjected to an extra hot,humid and rainy spring.With the heavy logging that takes place on Mindanao landslides are an annual occurrence that are only aggravated by the extra-heavy rains.Since the logging gets worse each year so do the landslides become more frequent.
Quite often these disasters take place in so called"Small Scale Mining"sites.Though most Small Scale Mining is legal,there is absolutely no oversight what so ever.The prospective miner pays a fee to his LGU (Local Govt.Unit,i.e.municipality and province).From that point there is no mandatory oversight though very,very rarely one finds a municipality that gets such miners to voluntarily enter into oversight agreements that guarantee periodic inspections and other supervisory oversight modalities.Still,even in those rare areas the miners denude the hills.If they aren't using the illegaly harvested timber for squatter homes or shoring up their haphazard tunnels and giant sluice rigs then they are selling the wood as quick as they can cut it down.
This Good Friday,April 22,2011 in the municipality of Pantukan in ComVal (Compostela Valley Province) miners were in their tunnels earlier than usual.Despite nominal adherance to Catholicism most miners retain indigenous beliefs.So it was that at 3AM that morning the illegaly dug tunnels were filled with small scale miners making offerings to the deity of the underworld,the patron of local miners.The ceremony,"Padugo"involves animal sacrifice,usually a chicken but sometimes a piglet whose blood is drained into the soil of the main shaft in front of an altar containing ceremonial plants and a saint statue.Without a doubt these miners were praying for protection from mishap in addition to pleading for good fortune.How ironic then that as they kneeled in their tunnels doing that at 230AM,1,200 cubic meters of mud cleaved off the hilltop above them and buried them.
The mining site lies in Sitio Panganason B,in the remote barangay of Kingking.Laying upcountry,13km as the crow flies from the centre of Pantukan proper,Barangay Poblacion,there are only rudimentary foot trails spanning several steep hills and crossing rapidly flowing creeks and rivlets.Even in dry season travel is relegated to off road motorcycles or more often,trekking in and out on foot.More over,the ubiqitous cell phones that seem to be attached at the hip of so many Filipinos are of no use that far out in the bush.If the mountains do no effect the signal inclement weather always will.It wasn't until 830AM that a breathless messenger ran into the municipal hall out of breath that the wider world had finally learned of the tragedy.
Mayor Celso V.Sarenas sprang into action being a veteran by now,of similar natural disasters since Small Scale Mining has been rampant in his municipality for more than 2 decades now.Indeed,in 2009 a landslide had befallen the immediately adjoining barangay of Napnapan killing at least 26 people.Mayor Sarenas immediately called the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) 1001st Brigade Headquarters in the nearby town of Maco as he began the official notifications and seeking military assistance.Afterwards the mayor followed Standard Operating Procedure,that favourite phrase uttered by technocrats and called the base camps of 3 mining tenement base camps.Only 1,the American-based multi national Russell Mining was able to offer heavy equipment.Located about 4km to the south of the effected area,Mayor Sarenas finally got the camp super on the line and asked him to donate any manpower and equipment he might be able to offer.More over he asked the super to call the base camp of Nationwide Development Corporation (NADECOR)/Saint Agustine,the other American-based outfit in the sector and ask for the same from them.The Russell camp superintendent offered his Catepillar D9,a bulldozer with a 4.2 meter wide blade but couldn't provide much in the way of manpower since the Easter Weekend was upon them.He did promise to call NADECOR/St.Agustine and then send the bulldozer over straight away.Back in the municipal hall the mayor was able to locate a phone number for the 3rd multi-national mining company,APEX and called and made the same request.APEX sent its Chief Engineer and a full crew of labourers.
Meanwhile,the 1001st Bde (Brigade) had called its Regional Command,EASMINCOM (Eastern Mindanao Command) headquartered in Davao City and made them aware of the situation.Immediately EASMINCOM scrambled a rescue helicopter from the PAF (Philippine Air Force) 505th Air Rescue Wing and so the rescue effort began.
By noon Russell Mining and the AFP's 71IB (Infantry Battalion),72IB and CAFGU (Citizens Auxiliary Forces Geographical Unit,a Force Multiplication entity composed of local residents who are armed,trained and directly supervised by AFP cadres) were digging by hand.Unlike more industrialised nations there aren't any sound detection or heat seeking equipment to help locate victims,alive OR dead.There aren't even any blueprints or even the most rudimentary of maps.In fact,for the first 3 days Mayor Sarenas had everyone operating on the assumption that there were 30 homes in the sitio.Indeed there were 112.Though,in the mayor's defence,a squatter community by its very nature exists off the grid.Its residents do not file deeds,let alone information about their home or family.The barangay's remote location relegated it to an unknown quantity.In fact,the mayor had warned the community to vacate the sitio in 2010 but had been ignored.In fact,when that 2009 landslide took place in Barangay Napnapan's Sitio Boringot,a non-fatal one had happened just hours later in Sitio Panganason-B,the very same site I am discussing.
As surviving miners offered later that day,with gold paying 2,000 Pesos per gram ($38) people will keep digging,safety be damned.One miner had been trying sleep off a late evening drinking bout when the bunkhouse he was sleeping in jumped off the ground and began quickly moving towards a nearby ravine.Having made his way out its doorway (luckily the crude strycture had no door or the man might now be with his friends buried under at least 6 meters of mud) and began swiming on the top of the quickly moving mass.By the time it stopped at the far end of the valley floor he was chest deep and certainly would have suffocated if others hadn't lassoed him and pulled him out by motorcycle.Still,he said that while he's still not sure about his own future in mining he is fatalistic.Now having survived 3 fatal mudslides and only 26 years old,he feels that when one's rime is up,its up.Destiny is what it is,especially in a country where children must grow up eating roadkill,when lucky.
Shortly after the messenger had made his way into the municipal hall,the first corpse was discovered and pulled free.15 year old John Ric"JunJun"Torrejos lived in Barangay Buan in Tagum City in the next province,Davao del Norte but was already a veteran miner working with his father and 12 year old brother in the family's tunnel mine and dmall ball mill operation.Both his younger brother and father would soon be found dead as well.Just after JunJun's battered corpse was identified by a distraught aunt who lived in the squatter camp below the hill the bulldozer arrived.After its arrival people began arriving in small groups,having hiked in from town.
The PAF Search and Rescue helicopter from the 505th swooped low not long after but the site's sharp ridgelines and unstable footing prevented an immediate landing.It would be much later in the day before the pilots were told the co+ordinates for Panganason Elementary School whose adjoining field had served as a helipad in the 2009 landslide.
With the latest 2 bodies hoped dimmed of finding anyone alive in the 5 separate tunnel systems dotting the fractured hillside.Still,Mayor Sarenas kept up appearances and didn't offically declare an end to Rescue Operations until Sunday night,April 24.After an intial 13 people were rescued,all within 10 minutes of the actual event,no other"happy endings"would be pulled out of the debris.Without helicopters the officials present decided to have local"habal-habal"(motorcycle taxis,in this case off road) strap the cadavers to boards fitted onto the back of the motorcycle and bring them to a funeral home in the town proper
.When the DENR Region XI's (Department of the Environment and Natural Resources) MGB (Mining and Geosciences Bureau,sublimated to the DENR) representative,Noel Angeles arrived on site he immediately issued a Stop Order barring all mining in both that sitio,Panganason-B as well as the adjoining Sitio Panganason-A.Mayor Sarenas then issueThe 30 became 68 spanning both sitions,A and B,and finally the order encompassed all outlying homes to the tune of 112.The Order was officially handed out on Monday,April 25,2PM,All residents were given 48 hours to vacate and the option of demolishing their own homes (something most naturally choose so as to save the materiel for its nect location).One imagines that if in fact the situation was as dangerous as the local government claimed-and I have every reason to imagine it was-that the mayor would have made his order effective immediately.Just after that meaningless directive 4 more dead victims were pulled from a single buried tunne:
1) Cristituto Torrejos Sr.,father of the first victim recovered,JunJun.Cristituto Sr.was 44 years old and like his son resided in Barangay Cuamboagan,Tagum City,Davao del Norte Province
2) Brindo Dani,age 26,Barangay Buan,Asuncion,Davao del Norte Province
3) Marvin A.Anglay,19 years old,same barangay,etc.as Victim #2
4) Pio Dennis Calapis,17 tears old,same barangay,etc.as Victim #1
By the time that the 48 hour deadline to vacate transpired on Wednesday,April 27th at 2PM three families refused to comply and the Philippines being the weak state that it is tried reasoning with these 3 families.In the end the 3 held their ground (no pun intended,OK.maybe just a tad bit) and continue to live in that otherwise barren sitio.The rest of the community was housed in the nearby Panganason Elementary School.Back at the site the heavy rains continued and so it was incredibly slow going.All the more si since the single piece of heavy equipment,lent by Russell Mining,was released back to its base camp since the ground was too innundated with moisture to allow effective use of heavy equipment.The Provincial Government had also brought a smaller bulldozer,a backhoe and a single axle dumptruck in over the weekend and they stayed on site continously though almost always off to the side due to unstable terrain.
On Tuesday,April 26th,as rains began coming heavier rescuers sighted 5 bodies.In quick succession the 5 were unearthed ahead of a heavy downpour with workers removing the 5th cadaver just as the skies opened up over head.The following 5 were identified immediately:
1) Jericho Escoto,38 years old,Baguio City,Mountain Province,Luzon Island
2) Felixberto Ynay,54 years old,resided in the same sitio where he died
3) Vincent Balog,21 years old,Barangay Mangalingay,Gitawtaw,Bukidnon Province
4) Junel Lapates,no age available,the same address as Victim #3
5) Noel Caincoy,aged 21,same address as Victims # 3 and 4
With the rains worked stop and did not resume until Thursday morning,April 28.On Wednesday a 22 man team of volunteers was deployed by the Pantukan Municipal Engineer's office to demolish the homes not already dismantled by their owners.Because of the rain they too didn't begin until Thursday,the 28th.Before finishing they demolished 52 homes.The work contimued on through Friday but otherwise nothing fruitful occurred.Both the Search and Rescue helicopter from the PAF 505th as well as 2 other Hueys (UH-1H) from the 11th TOG (Tactical Operations Group) at EASMINCOM were released and returned to their base in Davao City.Likwise the provincial government's heavy equipment was also released as the operation began winding down.
On Saturday,April 30th the last 2 bodies were sighted soon after operations began that morning.2 pairs of hands were seen,as if reaching for succor above the mud encasing both bodies at the bottom of a vertical shaft,10 meters deep.In checking the situation it was discovered that the 4 meter deep mud that had buried both those bodies had solidified and set.Using piped in water to soften the soil as personnel from the Davao City Fire and Rescue Department rapelled down,at significant danger to themselves and spent more than 3 hours carefully removing the 2 bodies.The first removed was a young man whose identity remained a mystery until Tuesday,May 3rd when his grieving mother was finally able to identify 16 year old Alejandro Justol.The last body removed,at 130PM that afternoon was 12 year old Cristituto Torrejos Jr.,brother of JunJun and son of Cristituti Sr.
On Sunday,May 1 the retrieval phase officially ended with 9 people still unaccounted for and presuned dead in addition to the 14 identified victims that had been recovered over the previous 9 days.
The 14 victims:
1) Cristituto Torrejos. Sr.,age 44 of Barangay Cuamboagan,Tagum City,Davao del Norte Province
2) Cristituto Torrejos Jr.,12,son of Victim #1,same address
3) Pio Dennis Calapis,17 years old,same address as Victims #1,2 and 3
4) John Ric Torrejos,15,son of Victim #1,elder brother of Victim #2,same address as them
5) Brindo Dani,26 years old,Barangay Buan,Asuncion,Davao del Norte Province
6) Marjon A.Guilbatan,19 years old,same address as Victim #4
7) Marvin A.Anglay,19 years old,same address as Victims #5 and 4
8) Relito T.Tebag,21 years old,same address as Victims #4,5 and 6
9) Felixberto Ynay,54 years old,lived in the squatter community,Sitio Panganason-B,Barangay Kingking,Pantukan,ComVal Province
10) Vincent Balog,21 years old,Barangay Mangalingay,Gitawtaw,Bukidnon Province
11) Noel Caincoy,21 years old,same address as Victim #10
12) Junel Lapates,age unknown,possibly juvenile,same address as Victims #10 and 11
13) Alejandro Justol,age 16,resident of that squatter community.He had initially been un-identified because his mother,also residing there,had gone into a catatonic-like stupor and so noone was willing to identify him until his mother re-gained a modicum of composure
14) Jericho Escoto,38 years old,Baguio City,Mountain Province,Luzon Island
Though not yet officially dead,the 8 miners who remain missing are of course dead as well.There names:
1) Bernard Celestial,of Tagum City
2) Bobit Celestial,same municipality
3) Jay Omega,Maco,ComVal Province
4) Alvin Caincoy,Barangay Mangalingay,Gitawtaw,Bukidnon Province
5) Andy Lapates,same address as Victim #4
6) Bitoy (no surname),Lasang,Davao del Sur Province
7) Erning (no surname),a Sama Tribesman,Samal Island,Davao del Sur Province
8) Jongjong,same information as Victim #7
Though not listed in any of the lists,there was a full wallet found,and locals insist that the following man is dead as well
9) Boloy Ensisel,Barangay San Roque,Panabo City,Davao del Norte Province
The fallout politically has been a tad bit more than we usually see.These kind of senseless deaths take place all too often and so the government rarely even bats an eye about it.This time however things have turned out differently.Perhaps it is a domino like effect from the AFP Corruption Scandal (General Garcia Case) that I began outlining in the"Last Quarter of 2010 AFP"entries.New attitudes just might be contagious.In any event,Bayan Muna Party List Congressman Teddy A.Casino has authored a Bill now siitting in the Natural Resources Committee,HB#4315,"People's Mining Act of 2011."It hopes to supercede the very faulty"People's Mining Act of 1991."Specifically it takes aim at Presidential Decree#1899 and to a lesser degree,#s 463 and 512.
Likewise,Senator Loren Legarda has authored a Senate Resolution seeking an investigation as well as a hearing with the DENR to find out just how it handles Small Scale Mining.
Quite often these disasters take place in so called"Small Scale Mining"sites.Though most Small Scale Mining is legal,there is absolutely no oversight what so ever.The prospective miner pays a fee to his LGU (Local Govt.Unit,i.e.municipality and province).From that point there is no mandatory oversight though very,very rarely one finds a municipality that gets such miners to voluntarily enter into oversight agreements that guarantee periodic inspections and other supervisory oversight modalities.Still,even in those rare areas the miners denude the hills.If they aren't using the illegaly harvested timber for squatter homes or shoring up their haphazard tunnels and giant sluice rigs then they are selling the wood as quick as they can cut it down.
This Good Friday,April 22,2011 in the municipality of Pantukan in ComVal (Compostela Valley Province) miners were in their tunnels earlier than usual.Despite nominal adherance to Catholicism most miners retain indigenous beliefs.So it was that at 3AM that morning the illegaly dug tunnels were filled with small scale miners making offerings to the deity of the underworld,the patron of local miners.The ceremony,"Padugo"involves animal sacrifice,usually a chicken but sometimes a piglet whose blood is drained into the soil of the main shaft in front of an altar containing ceremonial plants and a saint statue.Without a doubt these miners were praying for protection from mishap in addition to pleading for good fortune.How ironic then that as they kneeled in their tunnels doing that at 230AM,1,200 cubic meters of mud cleaved off the hilltop above them and buried them.
The mining site lies in Sitio Panganason B,in the remote barangay of Kingking.Laying upcountry,13km as the crow flies from the centre of Pantukan proper,Barangay Poblacion,there are only rudimentary foot trails spanning several steep hills and crossing rapidly flowing creeks and rivlets.Even in dry season travel is relegated to off road motorcycles or more often,trekking in and out on foot.More over,the ubiqitous cell phones that seem to be attached at the hip of so many Filipinos are of no use that far out in the bush.If the mountains do no effect the signal inclement weather always will.It wasn't until 830AM that a breathless messenger ran into the municipal hall out of breath that the wider world had finally learned of the tragedy.
Mayor Celso V.Sarenas sprang into action being a veteran by now,of similar natural disasters since Small Scale Mining has been rampant in his municipality for more than 2 decades now.Indeed,in 2009 a landslide had befallen the immediately adjoining barangay of Napnapan killing at least 26 people.Mayor Sarenas immediately called the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) 1001st Brigade Headquarters in the nearby town of Maco as he began the official notifications and seeking military assistance.Afterwards the mayor followed Standard Operating Procedure,that favourite phrase uttered by technocrats and called the base camps of 3 mining tenement base camps.Only 1,the American-based multi national Russell Mining was able to offer heavy equipment.Located about 4km to the south of the effected area,Mayor Sarenas finally got the camp super on the line and asked him to donate any manpower and equipment he might be able to offer.More over he asked the super to call the base camp of Nationwide Development Corporation (NADECOR)/Saint Agustine,the other American-based outfit in the sector and ask for the same from them.The Russell camp superintendent offered his Catepillar D9,a bulldozer with a 4.2 meter wide blade but couldn't provide much in the way of manpower since the Easter Weekend was upon them.He did promise to call NADECOR/St.Agustine and then send the bulldozer over straight away.Back in the municipal hall the mayor was able to locate a phone number for the 3rd multi-national mining company,APEX and called and made the same request.APEX sent its Chief Engineer and a full crew of labourers.
Meanwhile,the 1001st Bde (Brigade) had called its Regional Command,EASMINCOM (Eastern Mindanao Command) headquartered in Davao City and made them aware of the situation.Immediately EASMINCOM scrambled a rescue helicopter from the PAF (Philippine Air Force) 505th Air Rescue Wing and so the rescue effort began.
By noon Russell Mining and the AFP's 71IB (Infantry Battalion),72IB and CAFGU (Citizens Auxiliary Forces Geographical Unit,a Force Multiplication entity composed of local residents who are armed,trained and directly supervised by AFP cadres) were digging by hand.Unlike more industrialised nations there aren't any sound detection or heat seeking equipment to help locate victims,alive OR dead.There aren't even any blueprints or even the most rudimentary of maps.In fact,for the first 3 days Mayor Sarenas had everyone operating on the assumption that there were 30 homes in the sitio.Indeed there were 112.Though,in the mayor's defence,a squatter community by its very nature exists off the grid.Its residents do not file deeds,let alone information about their home or family.The barangay's remote location relegated it to an unknown quantity.In fact,the mayor had warned the community to vacate the sitio in 2010 but had been ignored.In fact,when that 2009 landslide took place in Barangay Napnapan's Sitio Boringot,a non-fatal one had happened just hours later in Sitio Panganason-B,the very same site I am discussing.
As surviving miners offered later that day,with gold paying 2,000 Pesos per gram ($38) people will keep digging,safety be damned.One miner had been trying sleep off a late evening drinking bout when the bunkhouse he was sleeping in jumped off the ground and began quickly moving towards a nearby ravine.Having made his way out its doorway (luckily the crude strycture had no door or the man might now be with his friends buried under at least 6 meters of mud) and began swiming on the top of the quickly moving mass.By the time it stopped at the far end of the valley floor he was chest deep and certainly would have suffocated if others hadn't lassoed him and pulled him out by motorcycle.Still,he said that while he's still not sure about his own future in mining he is fatalistic.Now having survived 3 fatal mudslides and only 26 years old,he feels that when one's rime is up,its up.Destiny is what it is,especially in a country where children must grow up eating roadkill,when lucky.
Shortly after the messenger had made his way into the municipal hall,the first corpse was discovered and pulled free.15 year old John Ric"JunJun"Torrejos lived in Barangay Buan in Tagum City in the next province,Davao del Norte but was already a veteran miner working with his father and 12 year old brother in the family's tunnel mine and dmall ball mill operation.Both his younger brother and father would soon be found dead as well.Just after JunJun's battered corpse was identified by a distraught aunt who lived in the squatter camp below the hill the bulldozer arrived.After its arrival people began arriving in small groups,having hiked in from town.
The PAF Search and Rescue helicopter from the 505th swooped low not long after but the site's sharp ridgelines and unstable footing prevented an immediate landing.It would be much later in the day before the pilots were told the co+ordinates for Panganason Elementary School whose adjoining field had served as a helipad in the 2009 landslide.
With the latest 2 bodies hoped dimmed of finding anyone alive in the 5 separate tunnel systems dotting the fractured hillside.Still,Mayor Sarenas kept up appearances and didn't offically declare an end to Rescue Operations until Sunday night,April 24.After an intial 13 people were rescued,all within 10 minutes of the actual event,no other"happy endings"would be pulled out of the debris.Without helicopters the officials present decided to have local"habal-habal"(motorcycle taxis,in this case off road) strap the cadavers to boards fitted onto the back of the motorcycle and bring them to a funeral home in the town proper
.When the DENR Region XI's (Department of the Environment and Natural Resources) MGB (Mining and Geosciences Bureau,sublimated to the DENR) representative,Noel Angeles arrived on site he immediately issued a Stop Order barring all mining in both that sitio,Panganason-B as well as the adjoining Sitio Panganason-A.Mayor Sarenas then issueThe 30 became 68 spanning both sitions,A and B,and finally the order encompassed all outlying homes to the tune of 112.The Order was officially handed out on Monday,April 25,2PM,All residents were given 48 hours to vacate and the option of demolishing their own homes (something most naturally choose so as to save the materiel for its nect location).One imagines that if in fact the situation was as dangerous as the local government claimed-and I have every reason to imagine it was-that the mayor would have made his order effective immediately.Just after that meaningless directive 4 more dead victims were pulled from a single buried tunne:
1) Cristituto Torrejos Sr.,father of the first victim recovered,JunJun.Cristituto Sr.was 44 years old and like his son resided in Barangay Cuamboagan,Tagum City,Davao del Norte Province
2) Brindo Dani,age 26,Barangay Buan,Asuncion,Davao del Norte Province
3) Marvin A.Anglay,19 years old,same barangay,etc.as Victim #2
4) Pio Dennis Calapis,17 tears old,same barangay,etc.as Victim #1
By the time that the 48 hour deadline to vacate transpired on Wednesday,April 27th at 2PM three families refused to comply and the Philippines being the weak state that it is tried reasoning with these 3 families.In the end the 3 held their ground (no pun intended,OK.maybe just a tad bit) and continue to live in that otherwise barren sitio.The rest of the community was housed in the nearby Panganason Elementary School.Back at the site the heavy rains continued and so it was incredibly slow going.All the more si since the single piece of heavy equipment,lent by Russell Mining,was released back to its base camp since the ground was too innundated with moisture to allow effective use of heavy equipment.The Provincial Government had also brought a smaller bulldozer,a backhoe and a single axle dumptruck in over the weekend and they stayed on site continously though almost always off to the side due to unstable terrain.
On Tuesday,April 26th,as rains began coming heavier rescuers sighted 5 bodies.In quick succession the 5 were unearthed ahead of a heavy downpour with workers removing the 5th cadaver just as the skies opened up over head.The following 5 were identified immediately:
1) Jericho Escoto,38 years old,Baguio City,Mountain Province,Luzon Island
2) Felixberto Ynay,54 years old,resided in the same sitio where he died
3) Vincent Balog,21 years old,Barangay Mangalingay,Gitawtaw,Bukidnon Province
4) Junel Lapates,no age available,the same address as Victim #3
5) Noel Caincoy,aged 21,same address as Victims # 3 and 4
With the rains worked stop and did not resume until Thursday morning,April 28.On Wednesday a 22 man team of volunteers was deployed by the Pantukan Municipal Engineer's office to demolish the homes not already dismantled by their owners.Because of the rain they too didn't begin until Thursday,the 28th.Before finishing they demolished 52 homes.The work contimued on through Friday but otherwise nothing fruitful occurred.Both the Search and Rescue helicopter from the PAF 505th as well as 2 other Hueys (UH-1H) from the 11th TOG (Tactical Operations Group) at EASMINCOM were released and returned to their base in Davao City.Likwise the provincial government's heavy equipment was also released as the operation began winding down.
On Saturday,April 30th the last 2 bodies were sighted soon after operations began that morning.2 pairs of hands were seen,as if reaching for succor above the mud encasing both bodies at the bottom of a vertical shaft,10 meters deep.In checking the situation it was discovered that the 4 meter deep mud that had buried both those bodies had solidified and set.Using piped in water to soften the soil as personnel from the Davao City Fire and Rescue Department rapelled down,at significant danger to themselves and spent more than 3 hours carefully removing the 2 bodies.The first removed was a young man whose identity remained a mystery until Tuesday,May 3rd when his grieving mother was finally able to identify 16 year old Alejandro Justol.The last body removed,at 130PM that afternoon was 12 year old Cristituto Torrejos Jr.,brother of JunJun and son of Cristituti Sr.
On Sunday,May 1 the retrieval phase officially ended with 9 people still unaccounted for and presuned dead in addition to the 14 identified victims that had been recovered over the previous 9 days.
The 14 victims:
1) Cristituto Torrejos. Sr.,age 44 of Barangay Cuamboagan,Tagum City,Davao del Norte Province
2) Cristituto Torrejos Jr.,12,son of Victim #1,same address
3) Pio Dennis Calapis,17 years old,same address as Victims #1,2 and 3
4) John Ric Torrejos,15,son of Victim #1,elder brother of Victim #2,same address as them
5) Brindo Dani,26 years old,Barangay Buan,Asuncion,Davao del Norte Province
6) Marjon A.Guilbatan,19 years old,same address as Victim #4
7) Marvin A.Anglay,19 years old,same address as Victims #5 and 4
8) Relito T.Tebag,21 years old,same address as Victims #4,5 and 6
9) Felixberto Ynay,54 years old,lived in the squatter community,Sitio Panganason-B,Barangay Kingking,Pantukan,ComVal Province
10) Vincent Balog,21 years old,Barangay Mangalingay,Gitawtaw,Bukidnon Province
11) Noel Caincoy,21 years old,same address as Victim #10
12) Junel Lapates,age unknown,possibly juvenile,same address as Victims #10 and 11
13) Alejandro Justol,age 16,resident of that squatter community.He had initially been un-identified because his mother,also residing there,had gone into a catatonic-like stupor and so noone was willing to identify him until his mother re-gained a modicum of composure
14) Jericho Escoto,38 years old,Baguio City,Mountain Province,Luzon Island
Though not yet officially dead,the 8 miners who remain missing are of course dead as well.There names:
1) Bernard Celestial,of Tagum City
2) Bobit Celestial,same municipality
3) Jay Omega,Maco,ComVal Province
4) Alvin Caincoy,Barangay Mangalingay,Gitawtaw,Bukidnon Province
5) Andy Lapates,same address as Victim #4
6) Bitoy (no surname),Lasang,Davao del Sur Province
7) Erning (no surname),a Sama Tribesman,Samal Island,Davao del Sur Province
8) Jongjong,same information as Victim #7
Though not listed in any of the lists,there was a full wallet found,and locals insist that the following man is dead as well
9) Boloy Ensisel,Barangay San Roque,Panabo City,Davao del Norte Province
The fallout politically has been a tad bit more than we usually see.These kind of senseless deaths take place all too often and so the government rarely even bats an eye about it.This time however things have turned out differently.Perhaps it is a domino like effect from the AFP Corruption Scandal (General Garcia Case) that I began outlining in the"Last Quarter of 2010 AFP"entries.New attitudes just might be contagious.In any event,Bayan Muna Party List Congressman Teddy A.Casino has authored a Bill now siitting in the Natural Resources Committee,HB#4315,"People's Mining Act of 2011."It hopes to supercede the very faulty"People's Mining Act of 1991."Specifically it takes aim at Presidential Decree#1899 and to a lesser degree,#s 463 and 512.
Likewise,Senator Loren Legarda has authored a Senate Resolution seeking an investigation as well as a hearing with the DENR to find out just how it handles Small Scale Mining.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Latest on the Insurgency Front(s)...NPA
The NPA has not been holding back, either for the new Presidency nor for the promised Peace Talks.
On Friday, July 30, 2010 at 735AM at Sitio Manipis, Barangay Poblacion in Davao City's Paquibato District, 4 soldiers from the 69IB (Infantry Battalion) were wounded, 1 critically in an ambush preceeded by 2 command detonated mines.
August 01, 2010, in Barangay Balingasag, Misamis Oriental, AFP Sgt.Elmer Panar was shot to death by a SPARU team (Special Armed Partisan Group). The SPARU,usually incorrectly transliterated as "Sparrow," as in the bird, are small teams of 3 to 4 guerillas who engage in close quarter, usually public executions. Panar had just returned home from a cock fight (the poultry kind sicko). After killing the Sgt. they killed a civilian, Alexander Pabuluan, for unspecified reasons.
August 03, 2010 at 1145AM in Sitio Lusong, Barangay Puting Bato, Cababaran City, Agusan del Norte Province, the 30IB were suprised when they stumbled across a large NPA camp while on routine patrol in a new sector. Approximately 60 NPA guerillas wee undergoing basic military training. In the subsequent fire fight 2 NPA guerillas were killed, 3 were wounded.
On August 04, 2010 in Matanao, Davao del Sur Province, Cresaldo Banan, a Surrenderee to the 39IB was killed by an NPA SPARU team.
Agust 05, 2010 in Barangay Dunganpikong, Matanao, Davao del Sur Province, an AFP patrol encountered a small group of NPA under "Ka Jam Jam." During that firefight Corporal Cesar Bucol was shot to death.
On August 06, 2010 in Barangay Colosas, Paquibato District, Davao City, the NPA ambushed a small group of motorcycles carrying tribal leader Datu Ruben Labawan, newly appointed Datu (Chief) of the STCPD ( Supreme Tribal Council for Peace and Development), an AFP COIN (Counter-Insurgency Force Multiplication front organisation) entity and the 2 AFP soldiers escorting him to a local forum in the local AFP Brigade HQ (1003 Bde), over the border in Santo Tomas, Davao del Norte Province. Labawan was unscathed in this 2nd attempt on his life. Sadly, the 2 AFP soldiers were killed, 1 of whom was his brother, Pfc.Kimpio Labawan. Pfc.Labawan and the second soldier, Elansio Alonsagay Jr were attached to the 62nd Recon Company. 4 of Labawan's fellow STCPD members were wounded as well in the gunfire by 12 NPA guerillas. The NPA captured 2 M16s off of the dead soldiers, and an additional wounded civilian, Datu Enecencio Dangkay, a tribal Datu from Bukidnon Province died the following day at the hospital.
The 1st attempt on Datu Labawan's life was when he and his wife were riding tandem on his motorcycle and 18 NPA hidden 2 meters off of the roadside gave him a superficial wound on his right hand. This attempt left a wound on the opposite hand. Go figure.
It is worth noting that Datu Ruben Labawan is also the leader of "Alsa Lumad,"another Force Multiplication effort of the AFP. The name, which means "Hill Tribes Arise," or, "Indigenous People Arise,"is patterned after a mid-80s Force Multiplication effort called "Alsa Masa" (Masses Arise). I will be going into great detail about these organisations as well as Force Multiplication in general.
In response to that incident the NPA has been engaging in PSYOPs (Psychological Warfare/Propaganda) using letter head for Datu Labawan's STCPD letterhead to print inflammatory statements that claim a Pangayaw (Tribal Feud, akin to"Rido,"Muslim Clan Fueuds) is taking place because of this 2nd attempt on the Datu's life. Labawan claims that he hasn't even been back to Barangay Colosas since August 06, the day of the attack, nor is he engaging in warfare against an entire community.
The barangay has been flooded with armed men but Col.Eduardo del Rosario, the CO (Commanding Officer) of the 1003rd Brigade which covers the area in question, insists that it is merely CAFGU and similar pro-government paramilitaries. Responding to Mayor Sarah Duterte Carpio's well voiced sentiments on the AFP's heavy handed operations, he said that he would be relieved of duty if he did not pursue armed insurgents, as well as being remiss with regard to tax payers. Interestingly, del Roasario admitted that there IS a Tribal War brewing against Bisaya, a non-tribal christian ethnicity, by a tribe from Bukidnon Province but that the AFP has intervened and warned the Bukidnon tribals against bringing their violence to Davao City. The Bukidnon tribals are irate over the death of their chief, Datu Enecencio Dangkay.
Speaking of Mayor Duterte Carpio, she instructed the barangay officials from Barangay Colosas, as well as nearby barangays to develop a withdrawal plan for roughly 5,000 IDPs (Refugees) in the event the violence does take place.
That same day, August 06, at 730AM in Monkayo, ComVal Province, AFP Special Forces encountered 30 NPA . After a long firefight the NPA withdrew only to run into the middle of the AFP Blocking Force on the border of Laak and Monkayo. 3 soldiers were badly wounded. the AFP later claimed that it had managed to capture a Hi Value NPA Leader, Percival Manimog during the clashes but the NPA claims that Manimog had withdrawn from the organisation in 2006 and has been incactive since.
On August 10, 2010 at 150PM in Sitio Tulay, Barangay Mahingkog, Magpet, North Cotabato Province a 13 year old boy claiming to be Communist guerilla from an NPA breakaway faction called "BFG" (Black Fighters Group) allegedly surrendered to Barangay Captain Godfrey Acupan. Mr.Acupan claims that Maximo had surrendered just minutes after a clash between the Black Fighters and the 57IB. When the guerillas withdrew with 2 wounded members Maximo managed to stay behind saying that he was tired of the beatings administered by a sub-leader Rex Ansabao.
Rex Ansabo was 1 of 40 escapees from (Amas) North Cotabato Provincial Jail in Feburary of 2007. Ansabo is the youngest brother of Ibon Ansabo, the group's leader, as well as a brother-in-law of young Maximo. A 3rd Ansabo brother, Samante is also a sub-leader in the group.
The group is as of now still relatively small, with 20 Regulars (full time guerillas), all members of the Bagobo Tribe. The Bagobo are "Lumad," the local equivalent of the generic label "Hill Tribe." In terms of demographical breakdowns there are 3 main denominators: I) "Moro," a collective name for 13 large ethno-lingustic groups all professing the Islamic faith; II) "Christian," anyone professing the Christian faith but usually relegated to Cebuanos and Ilonggo, 2 Bisaya (Visayan) groups; III) "Lumad," a collective grouping of 18 Hill Tribes but usually not including Negritos.
The Bagobo Tribe usually lives in the Upper Cotabato Basin and into Bukidnon Province. The Black Fighters cleaved off of the NPA proper roughly 18 months ago and seem to be devoid of any ideological imperative. However, that can easily change with the right person joining. Their current armoury, per IS-AFP (Army Intelligence) is 3 M16s, 3 M14s, 2 carbines and one 12 gaunge. That can also very easily change. One needs to remember that virtually all weapons held by the NPA have been obtained via capture related to tactical offencives.
August 12, 2010 on dirt logging road, Kulambugan Spur, at Kilometer #21, in Sitio Kulambugan, Barangay Danao in Lianga, Surigao del Sur Province a DENR (Dept. of Natural Resources) detachment of Retrieval Officers (officers tasked with reigning in illegal logging and the trade surrounding it) from Region#2 were embedded in a combined team of 50 AFP and PNP (Philippines National Police), to ensure the safety of the DENR personnel from both the NPA as well as criminal elements involved in logging.
The DENR detachment, part of Task Force Kalikasan (Nature), a Task Force aimed at indeciting the illegal trade that is contributing to so much of the island's rapid deforestation, as well as related violent crime, including insurgency, were walking on foot along the road, 2km from the logging site they were inspecting when the group was ambushed by NPA snipers who killed the Chief of Lianga PNP,Inspector Christopher P.Mazo and wounded 4 DENR personnel. Although the "Task Force, which is dedicated to just 4 adjoining towns, Lianga, San Miguel, San Agustin and Marihatag often comes under attack from bonafide criminal elements. However, this attack was NPA and we know this because the NPA itself took credit for it publicly.
Unfortunately for the DENR the AFP has been gearing up for a large offencive in the Andap Complex, which is where that patch of bush is located. Seeing 50 well armed soldiers and police (who also take part in COIN Ops, i.e. anti-insurgency operations) walking through the jungle in full combat mode just as alarge offencive is taking place sort of lends itself to vulnerability. The NPA warned the DENR not to have the AFP or PNP escort it and said that the department and its personnel have nothing to fear unless the agents are "mulcing" (extorting).
August 13, 2010 at 1145AM in Sitio Lusong, Barangay Puting Bato, Cadabaran City in Agusan del Norte Province, 60 NPA undergoing training were engaged by the 30IB with 2 NPA dead and 3 AFP wounded, 1 extremely critical. Earlier in this entry I discussed the 30IB having accidentally found the same NPA element encamped in a different sector of the municipality. As one can see the AFP's policy of breaking off engagement and lack of co-ordination between AFP and PNP elements is merely a stopgap measure, if indeed it can even be called that since it is without rhyme or reason.
August 24, 2010 at 1145AM in Barangay La Fortuna, Veruela, Agusan del Sur Province, NPA Front 3 attacked an AFP detachment of the post of the 26IB,less than 100 meters from the Battalion HQ. In less than 10 minutes they killed 1 AFP NCO and 4 soldiers and escaped after capturing 2 M16s and 1 KC3, along with 1800 rounds of 5.56MM amunition (M16) and ten M203 grenades. The dead AFP personnel: Cpl.Basir Limpasan, Pfc.Roger Espineli, Pvt.Rowell Antonio, Pvt.Elrico Orcijola and Pvt.Sim Bunzalan.
The next day, August 25, at 730AM, in Pursuit Operations the AFP encountered
a small detachment from the same NPA Front, Front 3, near the borders of Veruela and Monkayo which sits just across the line in ComVal (Compostela Valley) Province. 1 soldier from the 26IB and the detachment's civilain guide were critically wounded in that fire fight. After the NPA had withdrawn the soldiers recovered 2 IEDs weighing 1kg each.
The use of the term "IED" (Improvised Explosive Device) is the catch phrase that has become oh so popular this past decade and is used to describe any type of illicit explosive device. In the NPA's case however, the proper term when deployed would be command detonated mine. Without placement however the term loses any real meaning because it needs actual intent to be labeled a "mine" since it is illicitly produced. I am going through this rigamorole because sometimes, sadly, semantics do matter. The AFP is very quick to use the word "mine" with just about every explosive found with regard to the NPA. The term is loaded with negative propaganda value and this needs to be considered.
La Fortuna, the barangay where both the detachment post and its parent Battalion HQ sit is the most heavily NPA Influenced barangay in the town.
August 22, 2010 saw OPAPP (Office of the Presidential Advisor on the Peace Process) Secretary Teresita Deles commenting on the spate of recent NPA tactical offencives. Just 1 day prior on the Central Philippine island of Samar 8 PNP officers had been killed in an NPA ambush, along with 1 barangay official. Ms.Deles said that the NPA violence will not put a dent in the government's efforts at re-implementing the GRP (Govt.) and NDF (National Democratic Front, the umbrella org. of Leftist groups including the NPA) Peace Process. Indeed Ms.Deles said that the violence only serves to underscore the pressing need FOR the Process.
Speaking directly about the Samar ambush she said that the specific attack was "condemnable"[sic] and that she was "especially concerned" over reports that it had been precipitated by a landmine detonation which she said is never acceptable and never will be. Of course I have mentioned the government's use of the landmine issue to score propaganda points and this is just another tired recycling of this issue. A command detonated mine, i.e. an IED that it manually detonated, not by timer, is NEVER illegal in terms of LOAC (Laws of Armed Conflict), the body of international Law dealing with warfare. The government's repeated referral to the Ottawa Treaty is also bordering on the ridiculous but that is how the game is played here, par for the course.
The NPA, as I have noted in prior entries is also guilty of using inane issues in propaganda drives. Probablly the most noticeable being the whole "Child Warrior" issue, something that the government ALSO plays with. Customary International Law holds by consensus that the legal age of combatants is 14 and up, and most nations abide by 14.5 as the minimum age. Most Western Nations, the US included have absolutely no problem inducting 17 year olds and sending them to the front lines so that when the NPA and the GRP seize upon 17 year old CAFGU soldiers, or 17 year old NPA guerillas it becomes nothing more than a farce.
On August 26, 2010 in Sitio Gamot, Barangay Santa Filomena, Quezon in Bukidnon Province, the AFP's 43rd Recon Company's 1st and 2nd Platoons on routine patrol got into a heavy 35 minute firefight with the NPA.
On August 28, 2010 at 8AM in Barangay Mahaba, Marihatag, Surigao del Sur, the 36IB responded to HUMINT (Human based intelligence) regarding NPA cadres from Front 19B having been sighted in the village and the result was a 30 minute fire fight. This was followed by 3 more fire fights later that day.
At 1PM in Sitio Palonpon also in Barangay Mahab 10 NPA guerillas were sighted and engaged, wounding 1 AFP NCO.
At 135PM in Barangay Lansones a firefight resulted in 1 AFP NCO, Cpl.Frethel Escabal, being killed and 1 other NCO and 1 soldier being critically wounded.
At 140PM in Barangay Rambutan a 2nd detachment from the 36IB sighted guerillas and engaged without casualties.
At 2PM in Barangay Kalamansi a 3rd detachment of the 36IB was ambushed without casulaties.
At 220 PM in Barangay San Roque the 14th Scout Rangers saw a small group of NPA guerillas moving through the bush and engaged, killing a female and capturing her M16. The rest of her small group escaped into Barangay Boringon.
The violence caused another 1,225 IDPs (in total) to flee with many taking refuge in the municipal gymnasiums of Marihatag and San Isidro.
On Wednesday, September 01, 2010 at Kilometer 24 on Malabog Road, Barangay Malabog, Paquibato District, Davao City in Davao del Sur Province, a detachment from 69IB's Company C, under 1stLt.Ryan Veles was en route to its post when the truck they were in narrowly escaped the blast of a powerful roadside IED.
That same day in Barangay Mapula also in Davao City's Paquibato District a Recon detachment directly attached to 1003 Brigade HQ was nowhere nearly as fortunate when it too hit a powerful roadside IED. 1 soldier, Bonifacio Llaliza was killed as was 1 Bagani Force (Lumad paramilitary) soldier whose identity hasnt yet been released. 2 other soldiers were wounded.
As August went out with a whisper Jorge"Ka Osis"Madlos 1 of 2 NPA cadres who have operated on Mindanao since shortly after Martial Law was originally declared (the other being Leonicio"Ka Parago"Pitao of Davao City), and who concurrently serves as the Mindanowan NDF spokesperson, released a statement in which he compared President Aquino to Pontius Pilate and heavily criticised him for allowing an extension for his predecessor's OPLAN Bantay Laya II, the anti-NPA blueprint that was set to expire on June 30th past, the end of the Arroyo Administration.
Madlos was correct in noting that traditionally, Philippine Administrations have taken a breather after ascending to office so as to allow the Opposition to forge a more moderate position. Of course insurgent organisations have never opted to take a moderate position but that is neither here nor there. Madlos also added that the President is standing with flowers in 1 hand and the 2nd hand holding a pistol behind his back, a pistol he is itching to use imperils the GRP-NDF Peace Process.
The Peace Process ended in 2004 due to the GRP cooperating with the US to place the NPA, CPP and the NDF on the American list of terrorist organisations as well as the GRP having reneged on its vow to release all political prisoners in the Philippines. It is being wound up again for a renewed effort.
On Friday, July 30, 2010 at 735AM at Sitio Manipis, Barangay Poblacion in Davao City's Paquibato District, 4 soldiers from the 69IB (Infantry Battalion) were wounded, 1 critically in an ambush preceeded by 2 command detonated mines.
August 01, 2010, in Barangay Balingasag, Misamis Oriental, AFP Sgt.Elmer Panar was shot to death by a SPARU team (Special Armed Partisan Group). The SPARU,usually incorrectly transliterated as "Sparrow," as in the bird, are small teams of 3 to 4 guerillas who engage in close quarter, usually public executions. Panar had just returned home from a cock fight (the poultry kind sicko). After killing the Sgt. they killed a civilian, Alexander Pabuluan, for unspecified reasons.
August 03, 2010 at 1145AM in Sitio Lusong, Barangay Puting Bato, Cababaran City, Agusan del Norte Province, the 30IB were suprised when they stumbled across a large NPA camp while on routine patrol in a new sector. Approximately 60 NPA guerillas wee undergoing basic military training. In the subsequent fire fight 2 NPA guerillas were killed, 3 were wounded.
On August 04, 2010 in Matanao, Davao del Sur Province, Cresaldo Banan, a Surrenderee to the 39IB was killed by an NPA SPARU team.
Agust 05, 2010 in Barangay Dunganpikong, Matanao, Davao del Sur Province, an AFP patrol encountered a small group of NPA under "Ka Jam Jam." During that firefight Corporal Cesar Bucol was shot to death.
On August 06, 2010 in Barangay Colosas, Paquibato District, Davao City, the NPA ambushed a small group of motorcycles carrying tribal leader Datu Ruben Labawan, newly appointed Datu (Chief) of the STCPD ( Supreme Tribal Council for Peace and Development), an AFP COIN (Counter-Insurgency Force Multiplication front organisation) entity and the 2 AFP soldiers escorting him to a local forum in the local AFP Brigade HQ (1003 Bde), over the border in Santo Tomas, Davao del Norte Province. Labawan was unscathed in this 2nd attempt on his life. Sadly, the 2 AFP soldiers were killed, 1 of whom was his brother, Pfc.Kimpio Labawan. Pfc.Labawan and the second soldier, Elansio Alonsagay Jr were attached to the 62nd Recon Company. 4 of Labawan's fellow STCPD members were wounded as well in the gunfire by 12 NPA guerillas. The NPA captured 2 M16s off of the dead soldiers, and an additional wounded civilian, Datu Enecencio Dangkay, a tribal Datu from Bukidnon Province died the following day at the hospital.
The 1st attempt on Datu Labawan's life was when he and his wife were riding tandem on his motorcycle and 18 NPA hidden 2 meters off of the roadside gave him a superficial wound on his right hand. This attempt left a wound on the opposite hand. Go figure.
It is worth noting that Datu Ruben Labawan is also the leader of "Alsa Lumad,"another Force Multiplication effort of the AFP. The name, which means "Hill Tribes Arise," or, "Indigenous People Arise,"is patterned after a mid-80s Force Multiplication effort called "Alsa Masa" (Masses Arise). I will be going into great detail about these organisations as well as Force Multiplication in general.
In response to that incident the NPA has been engaging in PSYOPs (Psychological Warfare/Propaganda) using letter head for Datu Labawan's STCPD letterhead to print inflammatory statements that claim a Pangayaw (Tribal Feud, akin to"Rido,"Muslim Clan Fueuds) is taking place because of this 2nd attempt on the Datu's life. Labawan claims that he hasn't even been back to Barangay Colosas since August 06, the day of the attack, nor is he engaging in warfare against an entire community.
The barangay has been flooded with armed men but Col.Eduardo del Rosario, the CO (Commanding Officer) of the 1003rd Brigade which covers the area in question, insists that it is merely CAFGU and similar pro-government paramilitaries. Responding to Mayor Sarah Duterte Carpio's well voiced sentiments on the AFP's heavy handed operations, he said that he would be relieved of duty if he did not pursue armed insurgents, as well as being remiss with regard to tax payers. Interestingly, del Roasario admitted that there IS a Tribal War brewing against Bisaya, a non-tribal christian ethnicity, by a tribe from Bukidnon Province but that the AFP has intervened and warned the Bukidnon tribals against bringing their violence to Davao City. The Bukidnon tribals are irate over the death of their chief, Datu Enecencio Dangkay.
Speaking of Mayor Duterte Carpio, she instructed the barangay officials from Barangay Colosas, as well as nearby barangays to develop a withdrawal plan for roughly 5,000 IDPs (Refugees) in the event the violence does take place.
That same day, August 06, at 730AM in Monkayo, ComVal Province, AFP Special Forces encountered 30 NPA . After a long firefight the NPA withdrew only to run into the middle of the AFP Blocking Force on the border of Laak and Monkayo. 3 soldiers were badly wounded. the AFP later claimed that it had managed to capture a Hi Value NPA Leader, Percival Manimog during the clashes but the NPA claims that Manimog had withdrawn from the organisation in 2006 and has been incactive since.
On August 10, 2010 at 150PM in Sitio Tulay, Barangay Mahingkog, Magpet, North Cotabato Province a 13 year old boy claiming to be Communist guerilla from an NPA breakaway faction called "BFG" (Black Fighters Group) allegedly surrendered to Barangay Captain Godfrey Acupan. Mr.Acupan claims that Maximo had surrendered just minutes after a clash between the Black Fighters and the 57IB. When the guerillas withdrew with 2 wounded members Maximo managed to stay behind saying that he was tired of the beatings administered by a sub-leader Rex Ansabao.
Rex Ansabo was 1 of 40 escapees from (Amas) North Cotabato Provincial Jail in Feburary of 2007. Ansabo is the youngest brother of Ibon Ansabo, the group's leader, as well as a brother-in-law of young Maximo. A 3rd Ansabo brother, Samante is also a sub-leader in the group.
The group is as of now still relatively small, with 20 Regulars (full time guerillas), all members of the Bagobo Tribe. The Bagobo are "Lumad," the local equivalent of the generic label "Hill Tribe." In terms of demographical breakdowns there are 3 main denominators: I) "Moro," a collective name for 13 large ethno-lingustic groups all professing the Islamic faith; II) "Christian," anyone professing the Christian faith but usually relegated to Cebuanos and Ilonggo, 2 Bisaya (Visayan) groups; III) "Lumad," a collective grouping of 18 Hill Tribes but usually not including Negritos.
The Bagobo Tribe usually lives in the Upper Cotabato Basin and into Bukidnon Province. The Black Fighters cleaved off of the NPA proper roughly 18 months ago and seem to be devoid of any ideological imperative. However, that can easily change with the right person joining. Their current armoury, per IS-AFP (Army Intelligence) is 3 M16s, 3 M14s, 2 carbines and one 12 gaunge. That can also very easily change. One needs to remember that virtually all weapons held by the NPA have been obtained via capture related to tactical offencives.
August 12, 2010 on dirt logging road, Kulambugan Spur, at Kilometer #21, in Sitio Kulambugan, Barangay Danao in Lianga, Surigao del Sur Province a DENR (Dept. of Natural Resources) detachment of Retrieval Officers (officers tasked with reigning in illegal logging and the trade surrounding it) from Region#2 were embedded in a combined team of 50 AFP and PNP (Philippines National Police), to ensure the safety of the DENR personnel from both the NPA as well as criminal elements involved in logging.
The DENR detachment, part of Task Force Kalikasan (Nature), a Task Force aimed at indeciting the illegal trade that is contributing to so much of the island's rapid deforestation, as well as related violent crime, including insurgency, were walking on foot along the road, 2km from the logging site they were inspecting when the group was ambushed by NPA snipers who killed the Chief of Lianga PNP,Inspector Christopher P.Mazo and wounded 4 DENR personnel. Although the "Task Force, which is dedicated to just 4 adjoining towns, Lianga, San Miguel, San Agustin and Marihatag often comes under attack from bonafide criminal elements. However, this attack was NPA and we know this because the NPA itself took credit for it publicly.
Unfortunately for the DENR the AFP has been gearing up for a large offencive in the Andap Complex, which is where that patch of bush is located. Seeing 50 well armed soldiers and police (who also take part in COIN Ops, i.e. anti-insurgency operations) walking through the jungle in full combat mode just as alarge offencive is taking place sort of lends itself to vulnerability. The NPA warned the DENR not to have the AFP or PNP escort it and said that the department and its personnel have nothing to fear unless the agents are "mulcing" (extorting).
August 13, 2010 at 1145AM in Sitio Lusong, Barangay Puting Bato, Cadabaran City in Agusan del Norte Province, 60 NPA undergoing training were engaged by the 30IB with 2 NPA dead and 3 AFP wounded, 1 extremely critical. Earlier in this entry I discussed the 30IB having accidentally found the same NPA element encamped in a different sector of the municipality. As one can see the AFP's policy of breaking off engagement and lack of co-ordination between AFP and PNP elements is merely a stopgap measure, if indeed it can even be called that since it is without rhyme or reason.
August 24, 2010 at 1145AM in Barangay La Fortuna, Veruela, Agusan del Sur Province, NPA Front 3 attacked an AFP detachment of the post of the 26IB,less than 100 meters from the Battalion HQ. In less than 10 minutes they killed 1 AFP NCO and 4 soldiers and escaped after capturing 2 M16s and 1 KC3, along with 1800 rounds of 5.56MM amunition (M16) and ten M203 grenades. The dead AFP personnel: Cpl.Basir Limpasan, Pfc.Roger Espineli, Pvt.Rowell Antonio, Pvt.Elrico Orcijola and Pvt.Sim Bunzalan.
The next day, August 25, at 730AM, in Pursuit Operations the AFP encountered
a small detachment from the same NPA Front, Front 3, near the borders of Veruela and Monkayo which sits just across the line in ComVal (Compostela Valley) Province. 1 soldier from the 26IB and the detachment's civilain guide were critically wounded in that fire fight. After the NPA had withdrawn the soldiers recovered 2 IEDs weighing 1kg each.
The use of the term "IED" (Improvised Explosive Device) is the catch phrase that has become oh so popular this past decade and is used to describe any type of illicit explosive device. In the NPA's case however, the proper term when deployed would be command detonated mine. Without placement however the term loses any real meaning because it needs actual intent to be labeled a "mine" since it is illicitly produced. I am going through this rigamorole because sometimes, sadly, semantics do matter. The AFP is very quick to use the word "mine" with just about every explosive found with regard to the NPA. The term is loaded with negative propaganda value and this needs to be considered.
La Fortuna, the barangay where both the detachment post and its parent Battalion HQ sit is the most heavily NPA Influenced barangay in the town.
August 22, 2010 saw OPAPP (Office of the Presidential Advisor on the Peace Process) Secretary Teresita Deles commenting on the spate of recent NPA tactical offencives. Just 1 day prior on the Central Philippine island of Samar 8 PNP officers had been killed in an NPA ambush, along with 1 barangay official. Ms.Deles said that the NPA violence will not put a dent in the government's efforts at re-implementing the GRP (Govt.) and NDF (National Democratic Front, the umbrella org. of Leftist groups including the NPA) Peace Process. Indeed Ms.Deles said that the violence only serves to underscore the pressing need FOR the Process.
Speaking directly about the Samar ambush she said that the specific attack was "condemnable"[sic] and that she was "especially concerned" over reports that it had been precipitated by a landmine detonation which she said is never acceptable and never will be. Of course I have mentioned the government's use of the landmine issue to score propaganda points and this is just another tired recycling of this issue. A command detonated mine, i.e. an IED that it manually detonated, not by timer, is NEVER illegal in terms of LOAC (Laws of Armed Conflict), the body of international Law dealing with warfare. The government's repeated referral to the Ottawa Treaty is also bordering on the ridiculous but that is how the game is played here, par for the course.
The NPA, as I have noted in prior entries is also guilty of using inane issues in propaganda drives. Probablly the most noticeable being the whole "Child Warrior" issue, something that the government ALSO plays with. Customary International Law holds by consensus that the legal age of combatants is 14 and up, and most nations abide by 14.5 as the minimum age. Most Western Nations, the US included have absolutely no problem inducting 17 year olds and sending them to the front lines so that when the NPA and the GRP seize upon 17 year old CAFGU soldiers, or 17 year old NPA guerillas it becomes nothing more than a farce.
On August 26, 2010 in Sitio Gamot, Barangay Santa Filomena, Quezon in Bukidnon Province, the AFP's 43rd Recon Company's 1st and 2nd Platoons on routine patrol got into a heavy 35 minute firefight with the NPA.
On August 28, 2010 at 8AM in Barangay Mahaba, Marihatag, Surigao del Sur, the 36IB responded to HUMINT (Human based intelligence) regarding NPA cadres from Front 19B having been sighted in the village and the result was a 30 minute fire fight. This was followed by 3 more fire fights later that day.
At 1PM in Sitio Palonpon also in Barangay Mahab 10 NPA guerillas were sighted and engaged, wounding 1 AFP NCO.
At 135PM in Barangay Lansones a firefight resulted in 1 AFP NCO, Cpl.Frethel Escabal, being killed and 1 other NCO and 1 soldier being critically wounded.
At 140PM in Barangay Rambutan a 2nd detachment from the 36IB sighted guerillas and engaged without casualties.
At 2PM in Barangay Kalamansi a 3rd detachment of the 36IB was ambushed without casulaties.
At 220 PM in Barangay San Roque the 14th Scout Rangers saw a small group of NPA guerillas moving through the bush and engaged, killing a female and capturing her M16. The rest of her small group escaped into Barangay Boringon.
The violence caused another 1,225 IDPs (in total) to flee with many taking refuge in the municipal gymnasiums of Marihatag and San Isidro.
On Wednesday, September 01, 2010 at Kilometer 24 on Malabog Road, Barangay Malabog, Paquibato District, Davao City in Davao del Sur Province, a detachment from 69IB's Company C, under 1stLt.Ryan Veles was en route to its post when the truck they were in narrowly escaped the blast of a powerful roadside IED.
That same day in Barangay Mapula also in Davao City's Paquibato District a Recon detachment directly attached to 1003 Brigade HQ was nowhere nearly as fortunate when it too hit a powerful roadside IED. 1 soldier, Bonifacio Llaliza was killed as was 1 Bagani Force (Lumad paramilitary) soldier whose identity hasnt yet been released. 2 other soldiers were wounded.
As August went out with a whisper Jorge"Ka Osis"Madlos 1 of 2 NPA cadres who have operated on Mindanao since shortly after Martial Law was originally declared (the other being Leonicio"Ka Parago"Pitao of Davao City), and who concurrently serves as the Mindanowan NDF spokesperson, released a statement in which he compared President Aquino to Pontius Pilate and heavily criticised him for allowing an extension for his predecessor's OPLAN Bantay Laya II, the anti-NPA blueprint that was set to expire on June 30th past, the end of the Arroyo Administration.
Madlos was correct in noting that traditionally, Philippine Administrations have taken a breather after ascending to office so as to allow the Opposition to forge a more moderate position. Of course insurgent organisations have never opted to take a moderate position but that is neither here nor there. Madlos also added that the President is standing with flowers in 1 hand and the 2nd hand holding a pistol behind his back, a pistol he is itching to use imperils the GRP-NDF Peace Process.
The Peace Process ended in 2004 due to the GRP cooperating with the US to place the NPA, CPP and the NDF on the American list of terrorist organisations as well as the GRP having reneged on its vow to release all political prisoners in the Philippines. It is being wound up again for a renewed effort.
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