MGB confirms resumption of Tampakan gold, copper mining project in S. Cotabato
DESCRIBED by the late former Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez as an environmentally destructive project, the multibillion-dollar Tampakan Copper-gold Project has finally seen the light of day after the biggest and final hurdle to starting the project has been removed.
The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) has confirmed that the provincial government of South Cotabato has voted to lift the ban on the open-pit mining method that for years has stalled the $5.9-billion copper-gold mining project in the Philippines.
In the absence of anti-mining officials, 11 Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) members, led by Glycel
Mariano-trabado, unanimously voted for the amendment of the provincial Environmental Code, which included lifting the ban on open-pit mining. The passing of the amendments was done despite Governor Reynaldo S. Tamayo Jr.’s recommendation to sustain the ban.
The SP members’ move came just months after the open-pit mining ban was put in place by Lopez but was reversed by her predecessor, then-secretary Roy A. Cimatu, who signed Department Administrative Order No. 2021-40 on December 23, in effect lifting the four-year-old ban on open-pit method of mining for copper, gold, silver, and complex ores in the country.
The Tampakan Copper-gold Project is expected to generate hundreds of jobs and livelihood in South Cotabato but Lopez had once said that a 700-football field of open-pit mine would be catastrophic and the damage to the environment will be irreversible.
The Tampakan deposit in South Cotabato represents one of the largest copper resources in the country and in the world. It has an estimated resource of 2.94 billion tons of ore grading 0.6 percent copper and 18 million ounces of gold.
Anti-mining groups, meanwhile, hit the move of the SP of South Cotabato and urged Tamayo to veto the proposed amendments to the province’s Environmental Code.
“Lifting the open-pit mine ban will allow mining projects to destroy life-giving watershed ecosystems within South Cotabato. The Tampakan mining project will destroy the Altayan-taplan River ecosystems in the Quezon Mountain Range, while various coal mining projects are poised to ravage the Daguma Mountain Range,” Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan PNE said.
Dulce said the Tampakan project is among the largest untapped copper-gold deposits in Asia, estimated to bring about P295 billion to the coffers of the incoming Marcos-duterte administration. Senatorial candidate Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro chairs the developer of the Tampakan project, Sagittarius Mines Inc.
“We will be left with Marcoslegacy areas like the Marcopper open-pit mines, forever scarred and polluted, unfit for the flourishing of life,” Dulce lamented.
The anti-mining group Alyansa Tigil Mina, for its part, also condemned SP members of South Cotabato and accused the officials of hastily approving the proposed amendments without any discussion or votation.