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First Posted on Inside Mindanao (www.insidemindanao.com) on December 19, 2008

TVI mining sets to blast Subanon sacred ground
By Tito Natividad Fiel

SIOCON, ZAMBOANGA DEL NORTE—Farmers in barangay Tabayo, Siocon town, province of Zamboanga del Norte expressed alarm over the plan of TVI Resource Development Phils., a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company TVI Pacific, to blast another portion of Mount Canatuan.

The Subanon people in Siocon consider Mount Canatuan as their sacred place, a place where they can get herbal medicines, food, and other means of subsistence. Portion of Mount Canatuan is already denuded due to the open–pit mining conducted by TVI.

Raul Purigay, a farmer in Tabayo, reported to the non–government organization called DIOPIM Committee on Mining Issues (DCMII) that TVI officials asked them last December 12 to vacate their farmland, their home at Mount Canatuan as the company has scheduled to blast said area through the use of dynamite explosive for open–pit mining.

The farmers said they fear that violence and other forms of human rights violations would be employed again by TVI when the company would try to pursue the dynamite blasting.

In 2007, vice president for social commitments of TVI Resource Development Philippines, Inc., Feliece Yeban, asked forgiveness from the Subanon tribe for the human rights violations committed by TVI.

TVI has a government permit to mine about 500 hectares in barangay Tabayo, Siocon town, Zamboanga del Norte. The Subanon tribe, on the other hand, has a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) covering about 8,000 hectares in Siocon. The CADT covers the entire mining area of TVI.

Apolonia Bulagao, another farmer in Tabayo, said that TVI has no right to demand the farmers to vacate as the area is the ancestral domain of the indigenous people, the Subanon.

Timuay Jose "Boy" Anoy, the tribal leader of the Subanon in Siocon, reported that TVI has stocked large quantity of dynamite inside its compound in Siocon.

In stock piling large quantity of dynamite in Siocon, Timuay Anoy said that TVI failed to inform and failed to get the consent of the Subanon people.

END

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