Finally, a permanent settlement for a mountain people
Tanuman Village is a dream come true for Ips such as Chirino Limpuson.
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Chirino Limpuson was among the Subanon indigenous people (IP) who saw how his kinsfolk toiled for the transient small-scale mining operators at Canatuan in Siocon, Zamboanga del Norte. The IPs were semi-employed, semi-nomadic and unsure of how to secure a better future for their children.
Today, 58-year old Chirino is one of the Subanon leaders who work with TVI Resource Development (Phils.), Inc. (TVIRD) to ensure that the Company delivers its commitments to his fellow IPs and holders of the Canatuan Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT).
The Tanuman Village is his dream come true — a new residential community that is designed, funded and constructed jointly by TVIRD and the Siocon Subanon Association, Inc. (SSAI), legal representative of the CADT-holders.
Even as the Company is steadily fulfilling its commitments for employment and royalty benefits, it is also pressing on with the development of Tanuman – a permanent settlement; a first, in their long history in the mountains.
Chosen by the Subanon themselves, Tanuman Village is a 50-hectare area located four kilometers north of TVIRD’s gold-copper mining operation and right at the junction of three towns: Siocon, as well RT Lim and Ipil of adjacent Zamboanga Sibugay province.
The Tanuman Village design is based on planned development and environmental protection. Built amidst a luxuriant forest reserve that comprise two-thirds of the site, a residential area will be developed with power supply, water supply, sanitation infrastructure, schools, and community centers.
The project commenced in 2006 with earthwork and gradual transfer of families. In December, TVIRD engineers and Subanon residents worked hand in hand to put up power facilities and installing power lines, from the powerhouse, to the streetlights, all the way to the households.
By end-March 2007, all 44 families who were the first to move in are enjoying the safety and comfort of their brighter homes — for the first time in their lives.
Chirino beamed hopefully: “Naniniwala ako na itong liwanag sa aming bahay ngayon ay siya ring liwanag na mananaig sa aming kinabukasan (I am confident that the lights that brighten our homes will be the same brightness that will shine through our future).”
“Tanuman Village is just one project among TVIRD’s efforts towards reconciling human rights and mining by implementing community development projects using human rights concepts of people empowerment, consultation, social acceptance, sustainability, and a rights-based approach,” said Felice Yeban, a noted human rights advocate and TVIRD Director for Community Relations and Development Organization.
“We have supported and will continue to support the development of the IPs,” Yeban added, as she emphasized the Company’s resolve to work towards building for the Subanons a community that is not only developed, but sustainable.