Disclosure

The Sagittarius Mines Incorporated (SMI) holds its final mine design disclosure and consultations with communities and stakeholders within and around its Tampakan Copper-Gold Project, prior to its application for an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC). Photo was taken the other day in the town of Tampakan in South Cotabato which will co-host the mining project along with Kiblawan in Davao del Sur and Columbio in Sultan Kudarat.

SMI is mostly owned by Xstrata, one of the largest and leading mining companies worldwide. It aims to dig up, primarily by open-pit method, what is described as the largest undeveloped copper and gold deposit in the Southeast Asia-Pacific region. It plans to begin construction by 2012 and commence full operations by 2016.

The Philippine national government, backed by the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, has continuously expressed openness to large-scale mining investments such as that of SMI-Xstrata. However, various civil society groups, led by the Catholic Church, have strongly opposed large-scale mining investments and have recently obtained backing from the South Cotabato provincial government when the latter passed a local law banning open-pit mining in the entire province.

Spare Tire

The machine is a grain thresher "tirelessly" crawling its way to work along the main road near the Koronadal-Tampakan border in South Cotabato, Philippines. Walking alongside it is its equally "tireless" owner-operator.

Traversing the 8-kilometer road linking Tampakan and Koronadal, however, has remained a tiresome endeavor for most motorists as a good part of it remains unpaved and very rugged. In her last State of the Province Address (SOPA) last year, the former provincial governor had promised to have the road finally paved before her term ends in June 2010.

Koronadal is the capital city of the province of South Cotabato. Tampakan is its neighbor to the east, and is a largely agricultural municipality which hosts SMI-Xstrata, one of the world's largest mining investors.