We, the petitioners, counsel, and supporters in Bishop Casicas v. Exec. Sec. Bersamin, marched in our thousands today here today in Marbel towards the Koronadal Hall of Justice, to file a Certiorari case to cancel the extension of the Tampakan Mining Project’s Financial or Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) issued by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB).
In 2016, the MGB unilaterally ordered the extension of the FTAA by 12 years. We contend that there was grave abuse of discretion and unlawful neglect in the extension order that undermined the Constitutional safeguard of full presidential oversight and prior consultation and consent of affected communities.
No less than the President is constitutionally designated as the primary actor in any FTAA on the exploration, development, and utilization of natural resources contractual agreement, including its extension, renewal, or other material modification. Only the MGB Director issued the extension order.
The Local Government Code, meanwhile, requires the conduct of prior public consultations, free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous people, social acceptability from other local communities, and local government approval especially based on the public duty to maintain ecological balance. Indigenous people, small farmers, and irrigators attest that they were never consulted regarding the extension, despite these existential threats to their lives and livelihood.
We believe this is an urgent matter as the Tampakan FTAA is a project of significant national consequence. With its mining operations expected in full swing in 2026, the Tampakan Mine stands to directly affect 10,000 hectares of watershed forests and agricultural lands.
The mining project threatens to devastate the local ecosystem, poses health risks to our people, and could lead to the potential displacement and loss of farming and fishing livelihoods across three provinces here in the SOCCSKSARGEN region.
It must be noted that the entire region is among the country’s top producers of rice and corn, and is also the top producer of high value crops such as coffee, banana, pineapple, and oil palm, among others.
We thus urge the Regional Trial Court of Koronadal to declare the extension order as void and unconstitutional.
As Pope Francis laid down in his encyclical Laudato Si’, “the ecological crisis is also a summons to profound interior conversion…Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue.”
May our public servants heed the call of our times.
Water is Life! Save the Marbel-Buluan Watershed!
Buhay Bago Kita! Ipamana, Huwag Ipamina!
Cancel the Tampakan Mining FTAA Now!
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