10 minahang bayan sites eyed in Benguet towns

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office has validated areas in the municipalities of Itogon and Mankayan as minahang bayan or sites where the public could do mining activities.

Pursuant to the law, minahang bayan operations must be undertaken only within the declared areas.

Engineer Joseph Cervantes of PENRO Mineral Resources Management Section said Mankayan was recently identified as minahang bayan based on the validated active adits and tunnels.

Some 840 hectares with two parcels of land will be submitted to the Provincial Mining Regulatory Board (PMRB) for deliberation.

Itogon will have bulk of the minahang bayan covering 4,420 hectares of land.

Cervantes said their office is reminding the small-scale miners to register as per requirement for approval of any contract in the event their application for minahang bayan is approved.

For the municipality of Bakun, Cervantes said the Mines and Geosciences Bureau Central Office has cleared a total area of 287 hectares on June 20 for a minahang bayan subject to submission of Free Prior and Informed Consent.

Cervantes added with active areas of small scale mining in the area, there would be more additional applications in Bakun which was not included in the 287 hectares.

Prior to an existing profile of small-scale miners in 2010, Cervantes mentioned the need to have continuous updated data base.

Profiling of miners is eyed November this year.

Other areas for minahang bayan validation are the towns of Tuba and Tublay.

To date, there are currently 12 small scale mining operations in Itogon approved by the PMRB.

However, upon the issuance of Executive Order 79 in July 6, 2012, operations of small scale mining must be within declared minahang bayan area.