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The Earlier Practice:
The Philippines is perhaps one of the very few countries which had experienced several ways (laws/legislations) of managing its mineral resources, and this has a historical bearing in relation to the development of land tenure in the Igorotlandia. ... “Sagaok” is a unique Igorot tradition where good fortunes in gold mining (workings, ores) are shared among miners and other members of the community. ...
On the other hand, the introduction of the patent system by the colonizing United States provided the concept of some kind of “absolute” land ownership, which failed to embrace the prevailing practice of land tenure at that time. ... President Ramos, himself has a house there, with an Igorot caretaker, who may be a descendant of the original “land owners”. One would, therefore, speculate that many of the patented mining properties around the City of Baguio will eventually end up as housing subdivisions. ...
The leasehold system which was eventually adopted during the Commonwealth and succeeding governments, including the martial law years, has also failed to consider the land ownership practices of the Igorots and many other indigenous cultural communities in the country.
Comes now the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 or RA No 7942:
This new mining act has adopted a concept involving mineral production agreements between mining developers and the government, and provisions for Financial and Technical Assistance Agreements, as a way of accommodating 100% ownership of large mining operations by foreign companies. As commented by Lambert Sagalla (IQ Vol VI, No 1) this is an attempt by the authorities to attract foreign investments, and as he rightly mentioned, the Philippines is not the only country who have amended its mining legislations to be competitive. ... Although this development has attracted mining applications from big foreign companies including applications covering more than 50% of the Cordillera land area (Bernice Aquino-See, IQ July-Sept 1996 issue), it will take years, due to the very nature of mining as it is, before one could see the real impact of the policy, or indeed if the authorities got its mineral development policy right, or not.
Approximate Word count = 1482
Approximate Pages = 5.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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