South Cotabato studying proposal to declare Tampakan mountains a protected watershed

The South Cotabato provincial board is studying a proposal of local Catholic church leaders to declare the mineral-rich mountains in Tampakan town as a protected watershed.
South Cotabato Vice Governor Elmo Tolosa said the board has received the letter submitted by Fr. Gillarme Joy Pelino, Social Action Center director of the Diocese of Marbel, seeking such declaration.
“We have discussed the proposal and came to an agreement that it should be studied carefully,” Tolosa said.
Once the Tampakan mountains are declared a protected watershed, any form of mining and other environmentally-destructive activities will eventually be banned in the area.
Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI), which is backed by Xstrata Copper, the world’s fourth largest copper producer, has been pursuing a large-scale copper and gold mining project in Tampakan, which reportedly hosts the largest known undeveloped copper-gold deposit in Southeast Asia.
But the bid to bring it on commercial stream suffered a major blow early this month after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) rejected its application for an environmental compliance certificate (ECC).
An ECC is one of the requirements before a mining venture is allowed to proceed to commercial phase.
The denial of SMI’s ECC was due to the open-pit mining ban imposed last year by the provincial government of South Cotabato.
With the ECC rejection, Catholic Church leaders in the area urged the board members to continue protecting and upholding the environment code and pass an ordinance for the declaration of the mountains in Tampakan as a protected watershed area.
Marbel Diocese Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez separately wrote South Cotabato Gov. Arthur Pingoy Jr. to facilitate the declaration of the mountains in Tampakan as a protected watershed area and to stand firm in banning open-pit mining method in the province.
Board member Jose Madanguit, vice chair of the board’s environmental protection committee, said he favors the declaration of Tampakan as a protected watershed.
Madanguit was chair of the committee on environmental protection of the previous SP that approved the environmental code that bans open-pit mining in the province.
But as a whole, Tolosa clarified that the provincial board has no common stand yet regarding the proposed declaration. [PIA/Carina L. Cayon]