Livelihood loan package to help Zamboanga tribe

The Land Bank of the Philippines and the Canatuan Agro-Industrial Multi-Purpose Cooperative (CAIMPC) has announced the financing of a livelihood program that will directly benefit some 1,200 families of the Indigenous People (IP) of the Subanen tribe from the Zamboanga Peninsula.

During the recently concluded meeting of the cooperative and Landbank officials, an initial P5.5 million livelihood loan package has been identified. Part of the loan package will be used to set up a 50-hectare coffee plantation.

Nestlé Philippines has recently committed to the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) to purchase some 100,000 metric tons of robusta coffee from cooperatives annually. The CAIMPC has been identified by the CDA as one of the producer cooperatives. Officers of the cooperative and officials of Landbank have already been given free training by Nestlé at their demo farm in Tagum, Davao City.

Nestlé is currently importing thousands of metric tons of robusta beans to meet the growing demands of the Filipino market.

The project also entails the expansion of upland high value crop farm which the cooperative has successfully piloted as well as swine and poultry livestock dispersal.

In the feasibility study submitted to the Landbank, the cooperative stated that "the economic and environmental problems in the area will worsen if the people do not find alternative and sustainable livelihoods soon. The slow destruction of the ecosystem of the area because of unauthorized and therefore unsupervised mining activities needs to stop immediately and the rich natural resources efficiently developed to generate a more universal distribution of wealth and to create opportunities for the greatest number of its people."

It added that "the illegal small-scale mining activities have become the main source of pollution in the area; the people involved are creating a ‘potentially deadly time bomb’ for the unwitting victims…offering themselves as cheap labor in order to survive."

The cooperative started as an employee’s cooperative by TVI Resource Development (Phils.) Inc., a mining company that was granted by the Philippine Government a Mineral Production and Sharing Agreement (MPSA) in 1996 and then an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) in 1997. The same year, TVI operated a small pilot plant as part of its exploration activities and employed numerous local people. Since then, the cooperative with the assistance of the mining company, expanded to serve the bigger IP community.

The Subanen IP’s are mostly upland farmers with some of them directly or indirectly involved in unauthorized small-scale mining operations taking place in the area. Majority of the officers and members of the cooperative are Subanen.