Only in Cordillera, north of the Philippines can be found exquisite gossamer curtains of grains of gold dug in the upland mountains and hills that rear their majestic heads into the sky or in its river beds that floats stuff of legend.
Indeed, lucky are the Igorots who have tasted gold’s tenuousness of myth by scouring a mountainside looking for that precious metal, out of which wizened gold panners wove fables and the substance of possibility, from which hope is spawned and reborn.
For pocket mining is a serious activity in Cordillera. In this time and age when preference for gold is an effective hedge against inflation or economic hardship, the pocket miners’ deeds are as simple and prosaic as any incredible feat.
And those doing it are spurred by one thing: to improve their lives. They are just like you and Daily Laborer trying to earn an honest day’s living. They are a combination of all things, an embodiment of that diverse elements that led to the period of the roaring gold camps of Suyoc, or Lepanto, in Mankayan, Benguet, a long time ago.
And in doing gold panning, they often speak of a four-word phrase understandable to any Cordilleran who have heard of stories of gold panning in this mountainous region. And they say, “Entako maki-saga-ok.” Let us try having a share (for that gold).
How many gold panners are actually prospecting in the Cordillera mountains cannot be determined, not even by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR-CAR) Bureau of Mines and Geo-Sciences.
Some are solid citizens, some are not, who freely admit they are into pocket mining for a living and swear they have no intention of violating pocket mining laws.
The phrase, “Entako maki-saga-ok,” can also be understood in the context of marriage celebration where “watwat,” (pork) is distributed, according to the pocket miners. In short, it is the act of sharing what the good Earth gives.
One legend told by pocket miners was about a tree where early Igorot settlers plucked gold from it freely. But alas, greed, or “agom,” “apal,” “dakes nga kapanunutan,” made others want to have it all.
Enraged, Kabunyan, the Igorot’s highest deity took matters into his hands and buried the gold tree. So, it came to pass that seekers of the elusive gold dug hard and deep for it.
And what about the gold tree? Legend has it that the buried tree rooted out until it reached Suyoc that residents would say, “Nu balitoc id Suyoc, manyukayok!” Until the root reached Itogon.
It also came to pass that seekers of that elusive gold was given leeway and permission by owners of gold stakes of gold tunnels to work on the gold tunnel for some days. If the panner finds gold, it is divided by the panner and owner of the gold tunnel. That is the way of the “maki-saga-ok.”
Daily Laborer stayed for some days with pocket miners somewhere in Itogon and in Camp 6, Benguet last week. He watched pocket mining as digging holes on exposed mountainsides with a pick-axe or breaking up boulders washed downstream and exercising a native talent that distinguishes gold ore from pyrite, copper and chromite.
There are also different things that could lead them to a certain place, like fault line or specific types of rocks (i.e. quartz vein) or following some type of exposed ore, sulfide or pyrite which can contain free milling gold or encapsulated gold as well.
With a small pick-axe and an empty sack, a gold seeker starts the day prospecting along creeks looking for likely veins and chops off samples to process. The process is crude but it works. The prospector pounds the ore into pebbles and grinds them. Use of mercury not allowed by DENR, the prospector meticulously washes the ground samples with water.
Angio Salicwas, a gold panner from Mountain Province revealed that the hazards or frequency of accidents are as high in pocket mining as in the big time mining operations. Cave-ins and gas poisoning often occur.
“We avoid tunnels with loose soil during rainy months. And when your head light suddenly goes off when inside a tunnel or your match refuses to light after striking it, you better get out as fast as you can for you have hit poisonous gas,” Salicwas revealed.
At Camp 6, Kennon Road, along a river bank, Daily Laborer watched Rudy Palisting, 36, pan for gold. Lasiton crossed the stream, below a pool, stepping from stone to stone. Then he squatted down the river, dug up a shovelful of dirt and placed in his pan.
Palisting, who married a lowlander lady and stays at Rosario, la Union, is a carpenter but works in carpentry hard to come by, decided to become a gold panner and regularly commutes to Camp 6 for gold panning activities.
Holding the pan slightly immersed in the water, Palisting imparted to the pan a deft circular motion that sent water sluicing as the dirt and gravel slowly spilled out.
Contents of the pan diminished rapidly until only fine dirt and sand remained. Working with keen scrutiny and fastidious touch, Lasiton came up with a layer of black sand at the bottom of the pan. So thin was this layer that it looked like a streak of paint.
He examined it closely. In the midst of the layer was a tiny whitish-yellow speck. He dribbled a little water over the sand and another speck appeared.
Like a shepherd herding his golden specks, he picked them up with a tweezer, placed his gold in an empty iodine bottle and started to repeat the process again in search of gold.
Palisting revealed that in Cordillera, the carat of gold found ranges from 15 going down, seldom does it reach carat 16. With the gold secure in Palisting’s pocket, the miner often takes the trip to Baguio where buyers can always be found.
Or, he joins a group of panners who would gather all their gold into one kilo and sell it to the Philippine National Bank in Baguio City or in the BDOs. The national bank and the BDOs buy gold per kilo not in grams, according to Palisting, because miners pool their gold finds.
Majority of the pocket miners have not even seen the inside of an engineering school. Still, experience has taught them to spot rocks with metal contents worth their while. They do it by simply spitting on the rock and rubbing the wet part with a finger. This indicates if the rock contains enough precious metals.
Such a method is actually true. The late Charles Foster, Lepanto Mines Superintendent once pitted college-schooled metallurgists against Igorot miners. For hours, both groups worked to assay rocks.
A strange and amusing sight, as retold in mining campfires by witnesses: of one group of “civilized” men at work with their tools and another group of “savages” in G-strings busy spitting on rocks.
The outcome?
“Once more, the Igorot sense for gold was displayed when university-trained metallurgists I pitted against unlettered Igorot miners proved the latter victorious,” Foster wrote in Lepanto’s Yearbook.
Foster’s written statement reflects his sensibility to a culture he was even uninitiated to, and reflected Lepanto’s tradition of corporate sensitivity.
In Cordillera’s “boondocks” awash with gold, the term “entako makisaga-ok,” also reflects the Igorots sensibility of following the way, “Addi tako bukodan di gawis,” (Avoid greediness) when Mother Earth decides to give away her treasures.
And when embarking on gold hunt, miners are governed by strict rules. Many follow the rules studiously. Before a gold hunt, a chicken is butchered for a propitious sign and signifying favor of the deities.
In gold tunnels, women are not allowed inside and drunks were definitely barred. One does not defecate or urinate inside or near a gold tunnel.
For a fact, pocket mining has given many highlanders steady work. Many, after having saved the gold they have prospected and sold built houses for their families, purchased Elf trucks to start their business.
A lot of students have also finished their schooling by engaging in pocket mining during their vacation days. One, Rafael Dancio, 24, having finished college, revealed how he and other students often went to “makisaga-ok,” by working in gold tunnels of owners and getting a share of the gold dug out.
Or they would pan the streams, which is easier to do, said Dancio. Dancio now operates a bakery and supplies bread to miners in gold panning areas in Benguet.
And it has even built entire communities. On a visit in Dalicno, the other week, Daily laborer found the main activity of over 100 households in the village is still pocket mining for the men and gold panning for the women and children.
The languid blue skies, the gentle green and brown landscape of Cordillera highlands will reflect the human activity for search for that elusive metal – “balitoc” to the Cordillerans, “oro” to the Spaniards and “gold” to the Americans.
As weather-beaten gold prospectors always said what is true of the Cordillera mountains: “Waday balitoc sidin de-ey ay bantay!” (Ders gold en dem dar hills).