House quiz sought over gold exploration on over 16K hectare IP ancestral lands in Abra

BAGUIO CITY (November 13, 2024) -- Abra lawmaker Menchie Bernos formally sought the House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources and Committee on Indigenous Peoples/Indigenous Cultural Communities to investigate the gold exploration activities in her home province, which she believed, is alarming because no consent was obtained from affected indigenous Tingguians in at least three towns.

Rep. Bernos, official filing House Resolution 2073 on Tuesday said she is seeking the House’ intervention in a bid to protect the ancestral lands of the Tingguians along the northern towns of Abra – Sallapadan, Licuan-Baay and Lacub—after being informed that an exploration permit was already awarded by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) to Yamang Mineral Corporation (YMC), a subsidiary of the FCF Mineral Corporation of London, though Tingguian IPs in the affected towns were not consulted.

Bernos said she wonder how YMC was given an Authority to Verify Minerals (ATVM) by the MGB without getting the consent of the IPs in the area as a legal requisite.

This at the heels of a Cease-and-Desist letter issued to the YMC this week by National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) Cordillera Regional Director Atty. Roland P. Calde stopping the YMC’s exploration activities in Abra citing the latter has not yet secured from the legally-required Certificate of Pre-Condition (CP) over the Tingguian’s ancestral domain.

Atty. Calde also told YMC Country Manager Luke Bowden to argue to the NCIP why they should not face charges for violating the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA law).

Rep. Bernos also said YMC’s disregard of the rights of the Tingguians over their land should be stopped as the IPs and the ICCs should be consulted first because its is their ancestral lands which their forefathers passed it unto them.  "Nais nating bigyang importansiya ang mga karapatan ng mga IPs at ICCs sa Abra at ang pangangalaga ng kalikasan,” she stressed.

Though YMC President Karen D. Morie in response to the NCIP-Cordillera Cease-and-Desist letter blamed the tribal rights body’s “inordinate delay in acting on our application for a CP and Free-and-prior-informed-consent (FPIC)” despite the MGB’s endorsement of their application more than a year ago.

Morie further on argued in her letter to the NCIP-Cordillera that the issued exploration permit (ATVM) requires no CP and FPIC because only when the application for a Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) that consent to be obtained from affected communities is required.

Nonetheless, Rep. Bernos said, “the controversy must be probed so that truth will come out, in the name of the welfare of the Tingguians of Abra”