NCIP favors Kalinga tribe in mining case

MANILA, Philippines - The Balatoc tribe of Kalinga province has won another round in their legal fight against a state-run corporation and its private partners over mining operations within their ancestral domain.

The Balatoc tribe’s latest victory was the issuance by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) of a resolution last Sept. 9 stipulating that a writ of preliminary injunction (WPI) be issued subject to the payment of a P300,000 bond.

This was paid on Sept. 16, at the same time that the WPI was issued enjoining the respondents, the government-owned Philippine Mining Development Corp. (PMDC) and its private partners Carrascal Nickel Corp. (CNC) and CNC Faratuk Mining Inc.

“This is a very significant development in our struggle to protect our land which we inherited from our ancestors,” Balatoc tribal leader Victor Gumisa said in Filipino.

Last June 25, the NCIP granted a petition by the Balatocs for a temporary restraining order against the respondents to cease and desist from pursuing their mining operations within the Batong Buhay mineral property in the highland town of Pasil.

In its Sept. 9 resolution, the NCIP, a quasi-judicial body under the office of the President of the Philippines, ruled that the Balatoc tribe “is entitled to the protection of its right over their ancestral domain as mandated by Section 5, Article XII of the Constitution.”

The NCIP office in the Cordillera Administrative Region, which handled the case, upheld the Balatocs’ contention that the respondents began operation without the free and prior informed consent (FPIC) of the affected cultural community and indigenous people as required by law.

In the same ruling, NCIP hearing officer Guillermo Kadatar rejected the respondents’ claim that the case was an “intra-corporate dispute” and that securing the FPIC was unnecessary.