Deep within the mines: The Mt. Diwalwal story

( Second of two parts )

The Davao regional director of the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP), Roque Agton, a Bagobo scholar and historian, stressed that the issue regarding the truth to Mt. Diwalwal is a socio-historical matter, and that it is a socio-political responsibility of every Filipino to consider the riddle of Mt. Diwalwal as a significant part of the country’s statecraft. "More so, to understand the current state of Mt. Diwalwal, first we must know the truth regarding its history," he noted.

Based on what the Department of National Defense’s Research and Analysis Division and the NICP revealed, Mt. Diwalwal’s historical truth is finally in shape.

Classified/unclassified

Mt. Diwalwal’s gold was discovered during the pre-war era — as far back as 1935-1939 — when the Philippine Commonwealth constituted a preparatory government to the granting of full independence to the Philippines. Gold and mineral deposits were the resulting discoveries after the legislature passed the Quirino-Recto Colonization Act in February 1935, aimed to develop Mindanao and halt massive slave raiding by many high-labor enterprises involving ethnic inhabitants in the area. Because of the Quirino-Recto Act, the National Land Settlement Administration was formed to synchronize colonization programs in all regions of the country, concentrating on the Southern Philippines. But because the bill shaping the whole of NLSA was signed into law only on June 3, 1939 — funded with an initial capitalization of P20 million — its mandate was broadened to include other responsibilities, causing the participation of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The NLSA Project was to facilitate and implement its basic agenda of boosting the commercial potentials of Mindanao, encapsulating development mandates in a long-term plan. The project framework of the NLSA was under a five-member board of directors. AFP chief of staff Gen. Paulino Santos was appointed to head its assignments and future missions that included surveys of potential agricultural sites, with the help of a tactical-survey group he had formed, composed of local and foreign geoscientists and the AFP’s best research team.

NLSA’s mandate included facilitation on the acquisition, settlement and cultivation of lands acquired from government and private factions, and meeting the expenses for farmers and tenant-farmers to have a chance to own lands for cultivation as well as for trainees who had completed prescribed military training to be settled and situated in the area for its commercial-agricultural development.

However, the AFP’s link to the NLSA began even before the signing of the law in 1939. The Armed Forces was tasked to conduct a survey, particularly in the Koronadal Valley’s lower plains and lifts from Lake Buluan and Sarangani Bay, the Kidapawan District slicing through the Cotabato and Davao links, to the entire Compostela-Monkayo region spreading outbound from the upper Agusan River in Northern Davao, as early as 1938 — primarily to look for good and potential agricultural domains. But the survey team discovered more than what they’ve expected — gold ore traces were seen on the mountain’s downstream areas. Mt. Diwalwal was discovered as a major reserve of gold and silver deposits.

However, when the Koronadal Valley was chosen as the first location to be developed for agriculture on Dec. 20, 1939 — one week after the survey team returned to Manila — the resulting specifications and geo-elemental discovery reports of gold and silver deposits of Mt. Diwalwal in the Compostela-Monkayo region were nowhere to be found in hard copy. But after President Manuel L. Quezon signed on Feb. 11, 1939 two proclamations reserving districts of Mindanao as reservations for supposed agricultural colonies, only Koronadal Valley was given priority because of its accessibility and the anticipated coming of war to Asia. Moreover, everything regarding Mt. Diwalwal and whatever the NLSA survey team discovered was deserted when World War II reached the Philippines.

Post-war terms

Apparently, the projects of the NLSA board of directors could have been pursued if not for the creation of the Land Settlement and Development Corp. (LASEDECO) based on the increased influx of post-war settlers to Mindanao. Formed from a 1946 framework and was solidified as an agency in 1950, LASEDECO made the NLSA a defunct agency. It expanded its terms with a P6-million appropriation from the Philippine Congress to rehabilitate NLSA’s known agenda in the Koronadal Valley settlements.

LASEDECO’s mission was a socio-political matter for statecraft, a ploy to defuse communist insurgencies all over the country and use Mindanao’s resources to satisfy the demands of insurgent groups. Its stance deviated from what the NLSA projected — everything discovered regarding Mt. Diwalwal’s abundant gold deposits were kept unknown, most importantly because of the death of Gen. Paulino Santos during the war. In this affair, the AFP’s participation in Mt. Diwalwal’s gold was kept a secret for decades, until the Pananim Project linked up with President Marcos in the 1960s.

The Pananim Project was a government creation — a forest reserve to drive 26 Tasaday cave dwellers in Ilib Mata Awa and the external tribe of 15,000 T’bolis to be used unknowingly in the Compostela-Monkayo region.

The same Pananim Project — with untraceable geo-agricultural and eco-topographical basis — posed as a legitimate forest reserve, which served as a feeding bowl to many major lumber-hungry enterprises.

*****

(Malcampo and Caparas are from Manila and Monkayo, Compostela Valley, respectively. Sakai works for the National Commission on Indigenous People, and Galang for the National Historical Institute. Que is a member of the Ateneo Peace Debriefing Team in Zamboanga City.)