(Redemptorist Brother Karl Gaspar wrote ‘Glocal Mining Interests Face Local Resistance’ as foreword to the book,“To Mine or Not to Mine: Tampakan’s Copper-Gold Deposit.” Written by MindaNews’ Bong Sarmiento, the book chronicles at least 25 years of coverage on the developments in the mining project in Tampakan as well as the opposition by Church-led groups.
The book will be launched afternoon of May 21, 2026 at the 3rd Mindanao Book Festival. The bookfest is initiated by MindaNews in partnership with the Ateneo de Davao University.)
Think globally, Act Locally! This catchphrase arose when humanity became more aware of the consequences brought about by global warming and climate change. This catchphrase urges all people of the world to assess the health of our planet and to be engaged in concrete actions to combat climate change within their own communities.
A few Western scholars are credited for coining and popularizing this catchphrase, including the following: Patrick Geddes (Scottish biologist), Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy (German-American sociologist), David Brower (Founder of the John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies), Rene Dubois (French-American microbiologist), and Jacques Ellul (French theologian). Geddes coined it in 1915, while the others made this catchphrase popular in the 1970s. Today, this catchphrase has truly become globally popular, inspiring local initiatives.
There have been many documentations, research materials, articles, journals, and other reading materials based on the exhortations of this catchphrase. Of course, there have also been books written on the interaction davbetween the global and the local in the context of ecological struggles to defend the integrity of creation. Hence, the neologism glocal – a combination of global and local.
One of the first local people’s resistance to a project funded by foreign investments was the Chico River Dam which the Marcos regime wanted to build in the Cordilleras in the 1970s. people of Kalinga, whose lives would be impacted by this dam and whose environment would be destroyed, opposed the dam project.
A Kalinga chief, Macli-ing Dulag, who was also a pangat or elder of the Butbut tribe as well as the barangay captain of Bugnay, led the Indigenous People’s opposition. An Army Battalion was soon stationed in the area, as the presence of the New People’s Army appeared in the locality to support the people’s struggle.
News about this struggle spread all the way to Manila. The late Mariflor Parpan, who taught Anthropology in UP-Diliman, was mainly responsible for this spread of news. Soon, civil society organizations (CSOs, like academic institutions, human rights, and church groups) joined in the solidarity network, providing support to the Kalinga’s struggle. Eventually, Macli-ing Dulag was killed by elements of the Army’s 44th Infantry Battalion on April 24, 1980. But the struggle continued, and eventually the project was cancelled with the downfall of the Marcos regime.
It took a while before a book on this historic event got published. Ceres P. Doyo, a longtime columnist of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI), followed the unfolding of the Kalingas’ struggle and wrote articles for journals. It took 35 years before her book –Macli-ing Dulag, Kalinga chief, Defender of the Cordilleras – was published (ADMU Press, 2015).
An earlier book on a local resistance to stop logging operations was published in 1990. I wrote this book– A People’s Option To Struggle for Creation (Claretian Publications, 1990) which chronicled People Power by the peasants of San Fernando, Bukidnon. For years, two logging firms cut the trees of the forests across the Pantaron Ridge; The peasants who planted rice at the foot of this ridge in San Fernando noticed the decreasing water of the Tigua River, which they needed for their irrigation.
Eventually, with the support of their parish priest, Fr. Pat Kelly, and the members of the Redemptorist Mission Team through the Basic Ecclesial Communities, a picket was launched to barricade the street where the logging trucks would pass on the way to Cagayan de Oro. The two logging companies – Almendras Logging Company and El Labrador Co. – did their best to fight back, stating that they had licenses to engage in logging operations.
Fortunately, the picket began in mid-July 1987, barely a few months after EDSA I. The peasants thought that with the downfall of the Marcos regime and with Mrs. Corazon Aquino as President, there was a good chance that their struggle would end the logging operations. They were right because, as the People Power in San Fernando was covered by the media, this pressured Atty. Fulgencio Factoran, who was secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, to come to San Fernando and dialogue with the peasants.
However, it took two years (1987-1989) before Secretary Factoran was able to cancel the permits of the logging firms. Meanwhile, the picket in San Fernando spread to other towns in Bukidnon. One of the most active environmentalists to oppose logging was Fr. Nery Lito Satur. His ecological activism led to his killing by alleged disgruntled loggers on October 14, 1991.
The San Fernando story did not really have a glocal dimension as no foreign investors were involved. But the peasants fought logging firms, which were nationally powerful, having strong connections to top government officials. The grassroots resistance proved successful.
In El Salvador, Central America, a people’s struggle against a powerful mining firm had a glocal dimension. Robin Broad and John Cavanaugh wrote the book — The Water Defenders (ADMU Press, 2021) — which chronicled the struggle of the people in one province in El Salvador. It was the first time in history that a country was able to successfully ban all metallic mining at the national level. This was a battle of one country against OceanaGold, a powerful mining company. But it took 10 years to succeed. The book provides an inspirational story that even with insurmountable odds, ordinary people can fight a powerful foreign firm and win! (This firm operates in Nueva Vizcaya, whose permit was extended by ex-President Rody Duterte for 25 years!)
Now comes the book of Romer Segovia Sarmiento (better known as Bong), To Mine or Not to Mine: Tampakan’s Copper–Gold Deposit. Sarmiento has documented the Tampakan story and written stories for MindaNews as well as for local and national papers since 2003.
The Tampakan story began when the Australian firm Western Mining Corporation (WMC) started initial exploration works in Columbio town, Sultan Kudarat province in 1991. The Philippine government granted the Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) to WMC on March 22, 1995, weeks after the approval of Republic Act 7942 or the Philippine Mining Act on March 3, 1995, by then President Fidel Ramos. When WMC was granted the FTAA, it was designated as Columbio FTAA No. 02-95-XI.
The first person to blow the whistle about this mining project was Fr. Peter Geremia, PIME, who learned and exposed the activity of WMC in Columbio to the public. Fr. Peter was then the Tribal Filipino Program coordinator of the Diocese of Kidapawan, which has pastoral jurisdiction over Columbio. The Blaans in Salnaong, a remote mountain community in Columbio, referred the issue to the priest, an Italian who became an American citizen.
Following the FTAA approval in 1995 and with the exploration works later determining that the bulk of the deposits sit in Tampakan town, south of Columbio municipality, the core opposition would also shift to the Diocese of Marbel from the Diocese of Kidapawan. Tampakan in South Cotabato is under the pastoral jurisdiction of the former while Columbio is with the latter. Fr. Peter brought the Blaans, who were opposed to the mining project of Western Mining, to the Social Action Center (SAC) of the Diocese of Marbel in Koronadal. SAC Marbel waged an unrelenting decades-long campaign to stop the mining project, with the blessings and full backing of Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez.
After Bishop Dinualdo passed away on February 10, 2019 his successor, Bishop Cerilo “Alan” Casicas, continued his anti-mining legacy. Bishop Alan, in fact, leads the legal petition to revoke the 12-year extension (it turned out the extension was 18 years) granted to the FTAA of SMI.
(Editor’s note: Earlier this month, a regional trial court dismissed the petition for lack of merit).
The Tampakan mining project aimed to extract 2.94 billion tons of metallic resources, including 15 million tons of copper and 17.6 million ounces of gold through open-pit mining, which could affect 500,000 hectares across South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, and Davao del Sur. Eventually, WMC sold its rights to Sagittarius Mines, Inc. The foreign companies involved in the project were Indophil Resources NL, which is also an Australian firm, followed by Xstrata Copper, headquartered in Brisbane, Australia and a subsidiary of Anglo-Swiss globally diversified mining firm Xstrata Plc. In 2013, the Switzerland-based Glencore plc, another Anglo-Swiss firm, merged with Xstrata and took over management of SMI. Two years later, Glencore divested its stake in SMI in favor of Indophil Resources NL which subsequently ceded majority ownership of SMI to Indophil Resources Philippines, Inc. – a Philippine-owned and controlled company.
Since 1995, at least P32 billion (U5$550,159,040 at current rates) had been invested for the Tampakan project, SMI data showed. This includes costs for pre-feasibility, feasibility and environmental impact studies, permitting, taxes paid to the national and local governments, and assistance to tribal councils, villages, and municipalities straddled by the project. SMI has set up a basecamp in the village of Tablu, Tampakan, which the NPA rebels burned on New Year’s Day 2008. It has been rebuilt and so far, the only major facility of SMI in its mining tenement. Mines-related facilities such as ore processing and power plants, and tailings dam have yet to be constructed. The company has employed more or less 100 workers since 2013, after it terminated 900 workers in a three-phase retrenchment due to a revised work plan that year.
Sarmiento, who was born in General Santos City but grew up in Koronadal, was destined to write this book. He graduated from Centro Escolar University with a degree in Journalism and after graduation, was hired by Today as a correspondent based in Manila. But he decided to return to Koronadal in 2000. He claims that perhaps “the universe put me back in Mindanao for many reasons, one of which is to write this book.”
In 2003, he applied to join MindaNews and got accepted. However to supplement his income in order to support his family with two kids, he also worked as a correspondent for national and international news outlets. His first story on Tampakan appeared in Today on January 25, 2002. From then on, he had written hundreds of stories on Tampakan which were posted by MindaNews on its website, www.mindanews.com, and by its newspaper-subscribers.
So why did he eventually decide to write this book? In his own words; “To give the public a repository of the events that transpired involving the Tampakan project in the last two decades. I hope to write the facts and the context, so that more people will know about these, not just in the present but more so the future generations. By encapsulating the major triumphs and defeats of the parties involved — the anti-mining movement, the pro-mining supporters, and the project proponent – this book will serve as a reference or learning material for other researchers, residents, and interested readers on what actually transpired in two decades that could serve as lessons, raise awareness, or simply a reminder that these things indeed happened.”
While the local resistance to oppose the mining in Tampakan was led by the two Bishops of the Diocese of Marbel, the struggle mostly involved grassroots communities and parishioners across South Cotabato. They were also supported by civil society organizations (CSOs) across the province and all the way to Davao City. Whenever there were mass rallies, the CSOs sent delegations. Fortunately, most of the time, the provincial government backed up this people’s struggle.
Naturally, there were also those who were in favor of SMI among the ordinary folk and government officials believing that it would provide jobs and other benefits as well as the payment of taxes. Unfortunately, Tampakan’s indigenous communities – the Blaan – are split into two camps. SMI managed to lure several chieftains through various ways from giving guns, scholarships to promising jobs.
However, the pro-mining camp is a minority because the vast majority in South Cotabato have been against SMI. Indeed, Tampakan’s story is one of People Power as the resistance has been mainly a grassroots’ struggle. This was Sarmiento’s realization after writing the book. “When the people assert their will, those in or with power will eventually yield. In the case of Tampakan mining, residents of South Cotabato overwhelmingly support the open-pit mining ban imposed since 2010. The moves by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan to lift the prohibition in 2022 caused public outrage, with thousands peacefully joining mass protest actions. Indeed, the real voice of the people drowns what only benefits the few.”
Unlike the struggle of the people in El Salvador which ended with the closure of all mining firms, the two-decade struggle in Tampakan continues. SMI is not about to give up its mining rights and the firm is doing everything it can to eventually engage in open-pit mining. Only time will tell which camp will eventually win in the end.
Meanwhile, to quote the song To Dream the Impossible Dream, those of the local resistance might as well sing this song at rallies:
“To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe…
To run where the brave dare not go…
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest to follow that star…
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause…
And the world will be better for this…”
The Tampakan story is a modern David versus Goliath story. The biblical tale ends with David vanquishing Goliath. Will the David in the Tampakan story – the people engaged in a local resistance – eventually end Goliath or SMI’s hunger for mineral resources? Time will tell, But for the moment, the people’s struggle rages!
Meanwhile in the global scene, those who are engaged in environmental advocacy and action, face all kinds of difficulties advocating measures to face the climate change problem. On September 23, 2025, President Donald Trump of the USA gave a startling speech at the United Nations General Assembly where he claimed that “climate change is the greatest con job in history” and that “green energy will destroy a large part of the free world!” He then encourages industrialized countries to withdraw their support from the Paris Agreement and not to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by continuing to use fossil fuels!
More than ever, we need to heighten the need to think globally and act locally!
(Karl M. Gaspar, C.Ss.R. wrote this foreword on October 4, 2025, on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Patron Saint of the Environment)
If you want to visit the 3rd Mindanao Book Festival, please register here.
