BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera office of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB-CAR) underscored the proposed disestablishment of the two mineral reservations within the city’s townsite reservation is legitimate but it must pass through the tedious process outlined by the law to declare the mineral reservations as habitable.
Engr. Alfredo Genetiano, officer-in-charge of the MGB-CAR’s mine management division, said among the pertinent requirements of the request for the dis-establishment of the mineral reservations include a study to be undertaken that the said mineral reservations have no sufficient deposits to warrant the conduct of mining, a separate study that will indicate that the proposed areas to be dis-established from the mineral reservations will be habitable and separate resolutions from the barangay councils and the city council requesting for the dis-establishment of the mineral reservations.
Genetiano explained after the completion of the requirements, the local government must forward the request for dis-establishment of the mineral reservations to the MGB central office for further evaluation and assessment by technical people.
He added after the conduct of the validation of the legitimacy of the requirements, the request for dis-establishment will then be forwarded to the office of the President for the subsequent issuance of the needed Proclamation for the disestablishment of the mineral reservations.
“We cannot just dis-establish the mineral reservations because it was a presidential issuance that established the said reservations in the city that is why we also a need another presidential issuance that will mandate the disestablishments of the mineral reservations,” Genetiano stressed.
Proclamation No. 414 issued by former President Carlos Garcia in 1957 declared some 380.9 hectares within the city’s townsite reservation covering portions of barangays Loakan Apugan, Kias and Atok Trail as mineral reservations and excluded the same from the city’s townsite reservation while Proclamation No. 572 issued by the same president in 1959 excluded some 159 hectares from the city’s townsite reservation covering barangays Mines view and Lucban from the city’s townsite reservation and declaring it is mineral reservation in the city.
The proposal to dis-establish the said areas as mineral reservations was triggered by the controversial exploration permit granted by the MGB central office to golden Era Mining Company covering portions of several barangays in the eastern part of the city because of the overwhelming rejection of the barangay officials and residents on the conduct of pre-mining activities in their places.
Genetiano said the dis-establishment of the declared mineral reservations in the city is the call of the local government but the process will surely take a long time depending on the action of the President on the matter submitted to him for approval in the future.
He added that it is a fact that mining was instrumental in the growth and development of the city over the past century because the city was the seat of trade and commerce right in the heart of Benguet.
By Dexter A. See
