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Philippines
/ South Mindanao / Lake Sebu
The Country
side around Lake Sebu (365 hectares) is exciting and for nature
loving travelers definitely worth a trip. Due to an altitude of
around 1000m, the climate is quite cool. Lake Sebu irrigates the
fertile Allah Valley. Surallah near Lake Sebu is the main
municipality of the Tiboli tribe which is famous for its
metalwork. Tibolis make up the majority of the population while
the rest are Ilonggo settlers. In Surallah no accommodation is
available.
The road
between Koronadal and Surallah is quite good. The last trip from
Surallah back to Koronadal is at about 17:00. Jeepneys from Surallah
to Lake Sebu leave during the day whenever one is full. This road
to the lake is rough. Accommodation at the lake is available
in the Municipal Guest House. It has 2 bedrooms for P 25, with
kitchen; if occupied, private accommodation used to be provided
by the mayor at the same charge.
End of the 80's,
a gold rush on Tiboli lands has made many of the tribes people
rich. The Tiboli gold rush was and is centered in only 24 hectares
of the entire 5,224-hectare civil reservation which is administered
by the Office of Southern Cultural Communities. As Manuel
Baliao reported in the Philippine Daily Inquirer of June 29, 1991,
only 35 of the 106 tunnels that have been dug had been fully operational
at that time.
Compared to the
Mt Diwalwal gold rush site in Davao province, the Tiboli gold rush
site is better administered although in both areas an effective
presence of the proper government agencies is, according to Manuel
Baliao, still to be desired. The difference in Tiboli is made by
the chief of the Office of Southern Cultural Communities (OSCC)
Tiboli Service Center and the mayor of Tiboli town, the brothers
Dad and Mai Tuan, respectively.
After the Tuans
had been charged in newspaper reports of having taken control of
the mining operations in Mafia fashion, Mayor Tuan declared
towards Manuel Baliao: "I might grant that, but only in the sense
that my brothers and I happen to hold influential positions that
allow us to strong-arm the recalcitrants into obeying laws governing
all aspects of the mining activities."
Dad Tuan of the
OSCC, a US-trained helicopter pilot, said: "We're public servants
not mobsters. We want to maintain order and discipline here. Other
than that, we don't meddle in the affairs of people who come here
to conduct business. What you are seeing is free enterprise in motion."
Aside from Dad
and Mai Tuan, brother Fludi Tuan is president
of the Tiboli Mining Development Association while another, Yani
Tuan, heads the Tiboli Integrated Gold Buyers Association.
Manuel Baliao
reported that the gold rush, which peaked in mid-1989, enabled the
town of Tiboli (an administrative creation encompassing Surallah
and surrounding villages) to surpass all other South Cotabato towns
in terms of total tax collection. In 1990, more than P4 million
was generated.
For 1989 and
1990, official estimates put the total gold production at 1,704
kilos valued at 3.4 billion pesos. Due to the absence of
a Central Bank-authorized gold buying station in Tiboli, it is believed
that the bulk of the high-grade Tiboli gold was cornered by illegal
gold traders and smuggled out of The Country . The Gold Buyers Association
under Yani Tuan has, according to own claims, been pestering the
Central Bank branch in Davao to set up a buying station in Tiboli
but to no avail.
As was pointed
out by Manuel Baliao, the boom has translated into some very interesting
statistics. At least ten Tiboli families have become millionaires
and hundreds more can now be classified as belonging to the
economic upper middle class.
A reported 50
percent drop in school enrollment in the town of Tiboli can
be explained by the fact that more Tiboli families are now able
to afford to send their children to better schools in the cities.
Perhaps the single
most important impact brought by the gold rush was that it has raised
the social status of more Tibolis from dependency and servility
to pride and dignity.
Manuel Baliao
quoted Mayor Tuan as saying: "For the first time, the Tibolis are
able to fend for themselves without having to depend on dole-outs
and assistance from the national government. Let our detractors,
including those from the so-called cause-oriented groups, ponder
that."
Contrary
to allegations of critics, Tuan said according to Manuel Baliao,
that the gold rush had not set in motion the unraveling of Tiboli
culture: "The Tibolis will survive, flourish and glitter like
the gold found beneath their land," said the acknowledged spiritual
and political leader of the 80,000 Tiboli tribe's folks in South
Cotabato Province.
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