TUBA, Benguet – In a dialogue initiated by the local officials of Barangay Camp 3, Tuba, held on August 9, 2024 at the Barangay Hall, Engr. Virginia Briones, chief of the Mining Tenements Evaluation Section, Mine Management Division of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau-Cordillera Administrative Region (MGB-CAR) clarified some matters pertaining to the Exploration Permit Application (EXPA)-078 of Philex Mining Corporation (PMC).
MGB-CAR was invited to the dialogue to help address allegations that despite the expired Exploration Permit (EP) 009-2021 of PMC the company was still continuing with its drilling operations. Mr. Chris Cheno, PMC ComRel Manager stated that the company stopped its drilling operations when its permit expired on June 21, 2024, 12:00 midnight, and this was verified by MGB-CAR.
It was also explained that the automatic renewal of EP-009 does not require the conduct of Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC), however, if the company will apply for a Mineral Production Sharing Agreement, then the FPIC process will be required.
EXPA-078 refers to the area being applied by the company for exploration activities. The area covers Barangays Camp 1, Camp 3, Camp 4 and Ligay in the Municipality of Tuba with a total area of 4,563.00 hectares. During the FPIC process only Clusters 1 and 3 gave their consent, thus the exploration permit awarded only covered these two.
EP-009 refers to the permit for exploration granted to PMC initially covering an aggregate area of about 474.500 hectares and includes two (2) areas – Cluster 1 (Sitios Alapang, Bal-ao and Binal-ao, Barangay Camp 3) with an area of about 350.90 hectares and Cluster 3 (Sitios Mangga, Antamok Norte and Balding, Barangay Camp 3) with an area of about 123.60 hectares. However, in July of 2022 the Council of Elders for Cluster 3 withdrew their consent and the company respected said decision. Said action thereby reduced the area covered by the permit to 350.90 hectares which includes only Cluster 1.
It was agreed upon that a survey of the 350.90 shall be conducted by a team of surveyors and representatives from the Municipal Assessor’s Office of Tuba, DENR and MGB-CAR.
Also present during the dialogue were representatives from the Sangguniang Bayan of Tuba, NCIP, Philex Mining Company, community members and officials of Barangay Camp 3.
