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DECENTRALIZATION, INSTITUTIONAL AMBIGUITY, AND MINERAL RESOURCE
CONFLICT IN MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES
Please refer to:
Verbrugge, B. (2015). Decentralization, institutional ambiguity, and mineral resource
conflict in Mindanao, Philippines. World Development, 67, 449-460.
1. INTRODUCTION
In recent years and decades, decentralization has emerged as a major policy emphasis
worldwide, stimulating debates about the relationship between decentralization and various
aspects of governance and economic development, including public accountability and
corruption, poverty alleviation, intergovernmental fiscal relations, and the nature of political
competition (see Faguet, 2014 for an overview). In development studies, specific attention
has been paid to effectivity and equity concerns in the decentralization of natural resource
management (Larson & Ribot, 2004), particularly in the domain of forestry (e.g. Larson &
Ribot, 2004; Andersson, Gibson & Lehoucq, 2005; Batterburry & Fernando, 2006). A
recurring argument in this body of literature is that otherwise well-intentioned decentralization
initiatives are often thwarted by political-economic considerations, with national governments
“recentralizing while decentralizing” (Ribot, Agrawal and Larson, 2006), and local elites
capturing newly devolved powers and resources (Béné et al., 2009; Maconachie, 2010;
Pattenden, 2011; Poteete and Ribot, 2011).
A somewhat underdeveloped theme in the growing body of literature on decentralization is its
alleged potential to mitigate or even prevent conflict (Lijphart, 1977). A growing number of
scholars has warned against an overly optimistic reading of the relationship between
decentralization and sociopolitical stability. These scholars can roughly be categorized in two
groups. A first group is associated with the political science literature on civil conflict, and
aims to identify the variables that mediate the relationship between decentralization (whether
or not as part of a broader system of federalism) and intrastate stability at the macro level
(Kymlicka, 1998; Brancati, 2008). A second group of scholars is more closely associated with
critical development studies, and argues that decentralization increases institutional
uncertainty, thereby producing conflicts between a range of actors staking competing claims
to resources (Mccarthy, 2004; Peluso, 2007; Benjamin, 2008; Hagmann and Mulugeta,
2008).
Identifying with this second group of authors, this article adopts an empirical, bottom-up
approach to analyzing the impact of decentralization on mineral resource governance –a
theme that has hitherto received only scant attention in the decentralization literature (but
see Maconachie, 2009; Arellano-Yanguas, 2011)– in the Philippines. Section two of the
article provides a more elaborate review of the existing literature that deals with the
relationship between decentralization and intrastate conflict. It also proposes an analytical
framework to analyze the impact of decentralization on local resource conflicts, that draws
heavily on insights from the literature on incremental institutional change (particularly
Mahoney & Thelen, 2009). Section three provides a critical historical overview of central-local
ties and decentralization in the Philippines. It is argued that the Local Government Code of
1991, as the centerpiece of decentralization, was in fact a radicalization of a longstanding
tradition of decentralized statebuilding through local politicians. Finally, section four presents
the main empirical findings. It is argued that various, seemingly uncoordinated efforts to
decentralize mineral resource governance, have given rise to a highly ambiguous institutional
arena, marked by pervasive uncertainty regarding rule interpretation and -enforcement. This
institutional ambiguity creates opportunities for the renegotiation and contestation of
institutional arrangements, and the associated distribution of mineral resource wealth across
society. This institutional renegotiation is a political process par excellence, and involves a
range of conflicts between indistinct, asymmetric, and constantly shifting coalitions of actors
that involve amongst others government officials, large-scale mining companies, small-scale
miners, tribal groups, and armed groups. In an attempt to make sense of this complex
conflict ecology, three major cleavages are identified around which institutional struggles are
now crystallizing, namely (1) Intra-government conflicts over fiscal-regulatory authority in the
mining sector, (2) Conflicts between large-scale mining companies and small-scale mining
over access to mineral-yielding land, and (3) Conflicts between tribal groups seeking to
secure ancestral domain rights and associated mining royalties under the Indigenous
People’s Rights Act. The common denominator underlying these different conflicts is the
central role played by local politicians as gatekeepers in the mining sector. While it is
impossible to predict future trajectories of institutional change, it is highly likely that they will
continue to do so in the future. This raises important concerns over elite capture of the
decentralization process.
2. TOWARDS AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
Decentralization is understood here broadly as “the transfer of power from the central
government to actors and institutions at lower levels in a political–administrative and
territorial hierarchy” (Larson & Ribot, 2004, p. 3). National policy-makers can have various
incentives to support the devolution of power and resources to subnational actors. Some
authors treat decentralization as part of a long-term strategy aimed at shoring up the
legitimacy and power of the regime (Boone, 2003), while others also draw attention to short-
term political considerations (Eaton, 2001). Rather than providing an in-depth discussion of
the various arguments for and against decentralization, this theoretical section zooms in on
one specific argument that has been coined in favor of decentralization, namely its alleged
potential to prevent and/or to mitigate conflict. As noted in the introduction, existing
theoretical-analytical approaches towards the relationship between decentralization and
sociopolitical stability can roughly be categorized in two groups: one that focuses on macro-
level conflict, and one that draws analytical attention to micro-level political dynamics.
2.1. Decentralization and intrastate stability on the macro-level
The relationship between decentralization and sociopolitical stability has been extensively
debated in the literature on civil conflict (for overviews see Bakke & Wibbels, 2006; Brancati,
2008). For some authors, decentralization reduces the likelihood of intrastate conflict, by
enabling the inclusion of previously marginalized groups, thereby eliminating the grievances
that fuel conflict (Lijphart, 1977). Others are more pessimistic, arguing that decentralization
risks fostering centrifugal forces (Kymlicka, 1998), amongst others by providing subnational
actors with the institutional structure and resources necessary to sustain (violent)
mobilization (Snyder, 2000; Eaton, 2006). Still others argue that the relationship between
decentralization and conflict is context-specific, and hinges on such key variables as
interregional inequality and ethnic heterogeneity (Bakke & Wibbels, 2006), or the presence of
regional parties (Brancati, 2008).
Despite their disagreements, these authors share an analytical focus on the relationship
between decentralization and conflict (mostly ethnic and secessionist conflict, but see Eaton,
2006) at the macro level. Furthermore, as noted by Brancati (2008), most of these authors
draw on (comparative) qualitative case study material. A few others, including Brancati
herself as well as Bakke and Wibbels (2006), use large-N statistical analysis to advance their
theoretical claims. However, Bakke and Wibbels recognize the limits to the generalizability of
their findings, stressing the need for “substantial case-study work to more carefully examine
the mechanisms underpinning those findings” (p. 37-38).
2.2. Views from below: decentralization and local resource struggles
In recent years decentralization has attracted increased attention of a heterogeneous group
of political anthropologists, human geographers, and development sociologists, who are
primarily interested in understanding the impact of decentralization and democratization on
local (resource) governance arrangements. Emerging from this body of literature are a series
of related arguments about the intensely political character of decentralization, which all too
often continues to be presented as a technocratic exercise (Hadiz, 2004). While some of
these authors make notable efforts to develop an analytical framework, most are primarily
interested in providing an in-depth analysis of decentralization within a particular
sociopolitical context, usually based on extensive field research.
Several authors adopting such a bottom-up approach have convincingly demonstrated that in
many countries, democratic decentralization is “barely happening” (Larson & Ribot, 2004), or
is subject to intense struggles between different government levels and -agencies over the
eventual terms and extent of decentralization (Eaton, 2001). Particularly significant for the
purposes of this article are those authors that draw attention to the tendency for
decentralization to upset existing institutional arrangements that regulate access to natural
resources, thereby creating opportunities for established or emergent elites to capture
devolved power and resources (Béné et al., 2009; Pulhin and Dressler, 2009; Maconachie,
2010; Pattenden, 2011; Poteete and Ribot, 2011). In countries such as Ethiopia (Hagmann
and Mulugeta, 2008) and Indonesia (Mccarthy, 2004; Peluso, 2007; Schulte Nordholt & Van
Klinken, 2007; Eilenberg, 2009), decentralization has gone hand in hand with an increase in
conflicts over access to devolved power and resources between local elite networks.
Significant for the purposes of this article, Arellano-Yanguas (2011) interrogates the impact
of the new “localist paradigm” in the Peruvian mining sector, demonstrating how it has
contributed to a range of conflicts over the distribution of mining rents. The following section
aims to integrate these initial observations in a broader analytical framework for
understanding the relationship between decentralization and local resource struggles.
2.3. Towards an analytical framework
The analytical framework proposed here draws heavily on insights from historical
institutionalism, particularly on those authors working on incremental institutional change
(Pierson, 2004; Mahoney & Thelen, 2009). In line with other institutionalists, these authors
conceive of institutions as formal and informal rules that structure human behavior. However,
instead of seeing them as “neutral coordinating mechanisms”, they are approached as
“distributional arrangements that allocate resources unevenly” (Mahoney, 2010, p. 15) and
that “reflect, and also reproduce and magnify, particular patterns of power distribution”
(Thelen, 1999, p. 394). Moreover, while most institutionalists focus on exogenous shocks as
sources of radical institutional change, these authors combine their power-laden approach to
institutions with an analytical focus on incremental institutional change (Pierson, 2004;
Mahoney & Thelen, 2009). Finally, historical institutionalism would not be historical if it did
not pay attention to the determining influence of institutional legacies on existing institutional
arrangements, on the power relations underpinning them, and on the strategic choices
available to (groups of) actors (Pierson, 2004). While important questions remain with
regards to the contextual factors that promote or discourage particular trajectories of
incremental institutional change, Thelen and Mahoney (2009) suggest that institutional
change is particularly likely to occur in those environments characterized by high degrees of
institutional ambiguity, where uncertainty over the interpretation and enforcement of existing
rules creates opportunities for “agents of change” to assemble coalitions that seek to
influence trajectories of change. Ultimately, a power-laden approach towards incremental
institutional change draws central attention to “distributional conflict among aggregate actors
as a basic driving force in history” (Mahoney, 2010, p. 15).
Approached from this perspective, the most important effects of decentralization may not
necessarily lie in its sudden impact on institutional arrangements, but in the creation of long-
term institutional ambiguity, which carries the seeds of incremental institutional change. In
Mali, to name an example, decentralization has led to an “accumulation of several layers of
powers with no single legitimacy and no longer any central institution capable of imposing its
law and norms, thus greatly reducing the clarity of political processes” (Béné et al., 2009, p.
1945). Meanwhile in Indonesia, decentralization has also created a highly ambiguous
institutional environment, characterized by “confusion about the distribution of power and
authority between different levels of government” (Hadiz, 2004, p. 705). On the local level,
this institutional ambiguity feeds into “highly volatile socio-legal configurations that create
insecurity and heighten resource conflict” (Mccarthy, 2004, p. 1199) between different actors
that are “competing, conflicting or colluding” (Béné et al., 2009, p. 1945), and capitalizing on
divergent interpretations of the law to stake competing claims to power and resources. While
these institutional conflicts and resource struggles unleashed by decentralization need not
necessarily be destructive or disempowering, and can have important emancipatory effects
(Ravikumar, Andersson and Larson, 2013), evidence so far suggests that they are mostly an
elitist affair, which ultimately serves to exclude the end-users.
2.4. Methodological challenges and choices
The empirical data presented in this article was collected during more than 7 months of field
research in the Philippines (January-February 2012, October-December 2013, and January-
March 2014), with a geographical focus on the eastern and southern portions of the conflict-
ridden island of Mindanao. Here, a significant share of existing mining activities is currently
taking place on an artisanal or small-scale basis. According to Heemskerk (2005), several
obstacles hinder easy data collection in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) communities.
These include sector-specific characteristics such as variable income and production levels
and high levels of mobility. In the case of Mindanao, however, it is the political environment
that poses the most immediate challenges. For one, as elsewhere, most small-scale miners
operate on “the fringes of or completely outside the law” (Sinding, 2005, p. 244), which
makes them wary of outside inquiry. Even more challenging is the presence of a range of
armed actors, including communist rebels of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing
of the Communist Party of the Philippines (for more background see Marks, 1996), the
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and various paramilitary groups, all of which cultivate
indistinct connections with mining interests and local politicians.
In addition to these methodological challenges, there is simply a dearth of existing empirical
research on the situation in Philippine mining areas, or on the volatile history of eastern
Mindanao for that matter (but see Abinales, 2000). Hence, this article draws on a
combination of scarce existing literature, (online) media publications, and primary field
research. More than 200 open-ended interviews were conducted with a wide variety of
respondents. The selection of respondents in mining areas (mostly miners, financiers,
landowners and local politicians) typically proceeded on the basis of ‘snowball sampling’,
which taps local contacts and existing respondents to identify other respondents. Given the
pioneering and highly sensitive nature of the research, data collection relied on a pragmatic
methodological approach. Interviews with miners, upland settlers and financiers drew on
insights from life-course methodology, which uses subjective life accounts as an analytical
entry point to understand broader processes of political and institutional change (Locke and
Lloyd-Sherlock, 2011). Particularly important for understanding the broader institutional
context, however, were semi-structured key informant interviews with, amongst others, local
politicians, national government staff, large-scale mining representatives, lawyers, and NGO-
workers. While many interviews were held in English (still the language of instruction in the
Philippines), an interpreter was present at all times.
3. HISTORICAL-INSTITUTIONAL LEGACIES: CENTRAL-LOCAL TIES IN THE
PHILIPPINES
3.1. A tradition of decentralized centralism
The Philippines are often presented as a country with a longstanding tradition of centralism:
“From the colonial Spanish regime to the recent Marcos era, the country has had a strong
national government whose powers were concentrated at the centre.” (Legaspi, 2001, p.
132). Notwithstanding modest efforts to devolve basic government functions after
independence, under the postwar third republic (1946-1972), political-administrative
centralism has indeed been the dominant form of political organization, and was taken to the
extremes under the authoritarian Marcos martial law regime (1972-1981) (Wurfel, 1991).
Transcending the focus on the formal government structure, critical historical-institutional
analysis has revealed how the country’s peculiar experience with American colonialism
during the first half of the twentieth century has fostered a significant degree of autonomy for
local politicians (Hutchcroft, 2000). First, the Americans introduced democratic elections for
local executive positions, and while temporarily suspended during martial law, this practice
continues until this day (Franco, 2001). Furthermore, local elected officials were given
extensive control over the police and military, which could be deployed for private political
and economic gain (Hedman & Sidel, 2000; Kreuzer, 2009). This localized control over the
coercive state apparatus also persisted after independence and, at least in some areas, gave
rise to what Sidel (1999) has described as “bossism”: a highly coercive form of local political-
economic control whereby local politicians, often members of entrenched political dynasties,
wield control in ‘authoritarian enclaves’ (Franco, 2001). For Abinales (2000), this prominent
position of local politicians should be understood as part of a broader statebuilding agenda
whereby local strongmen-politicians, in return for their local prerogatives, commit themselves
to upholding the democratic electoral process, and to preventing the rise of organized
opposition against the state –read: counterinsurgency (see also Wong, 2006).
At the same time there were clear limits to local autonomy, with Manila-based elites retaining
control over their local counterparts through vertical patronage networks organized around
the main political parties (Landé, 1968). Furthermore, when Ferdinand Marcos assumed the
presidency in 1965, he gradually centralized control over the state security sector (Hedman &
Sidel, 2000), patronage resources (Hutchcroft, 1991), and the electoral process (Wurfel,
1991; Franco, 2001). This process of centralization culminated in martial law, which was
proclaimed in 1972. However, while Marcos was fairly successful in reigning in selectively on
local elites, the regime continued to rely on local powerbrokers for the implementation of its
increasingly authoritarian development strategy. Ultimately, Marcos failed to do away with
the localist tendencies in Philippine politics altogether (Hutchcroft, 2000). By the 1980s, the
limits of the Marcos regime’s debt-driven developmentalist strategy became apparent, and it
was faced with mounting opposition from a broad range of societal forces, ranging from
disenfranchised local elites to Muslim and communist insurgents that were particularly active
in Mindanao (Abinales, 2000).
3.2. Democratization and the Local Government Code
The military mutiny and people power revolt that eventually overthrew Marcos and swept
Corazon Aquino to power in 1986 ushered in an uncertain transition period, marked by a
profound spirit of popular empowerment. The new 1987 constitution reflected this spirit,
calling on congress to produce several pieces of legislation that would facilitate progressive
social change. This included “a Local Government Code which shall provide for a more
responsive and accountable local government structure instituted through a system of
decentralization” (The 1987 constitution of the Republic of the Philippines, A. X, s. 3). While
the Local Government Code was given high priority in congress, it would take until 1991
before it was eventually passed in the form of Republic Act (RA) 7160, which devolved
important fiscal and regulatory responsibilities to local government units (LGUs; in
descending order: the region, province, city, municipality and barangay (for a more detailed
discussion see Legaspi, 2001; Yilmaz and Venugopal, 2013). Furthermore, LGUs became
entitled to unconditional Internal Revenue Allotments (IRA) and a share of natural resource
rents, which significantly decreased local politicians’ financial dependence on national-level
patrons (Clark, 1999). Finally, the code reestablished local executive control over the police.
So what motivated national-level politicians to cede substantial power and resources to local
politicians? According to Eaton (2001), the answer lies in a combination of realpolitik on the
part of congress members, and the extraordinary political circumstances of the transition
period. Decentralization was first and foremost a product of the emancipatory spirit of people
power, and President Aquino saw it as one of the defining legacies of her presidency (1986-
1992). Meanwhile at least some members of congress, who were now bound by term limits,
had ambitions to run for local office themselves one day, or at least had strategic allies (often
family members) on the local level that would profit from a downward transfer of power and
resources. Furthermore, national politicians managed to sneak in several safeguards in the
Local Government Code that allowed them to retain at least some degree of control over
their local-level counterparts (Eaton, 2001). For Siegle and O’Mahony (2006),
decentralization was also a strategy to increase sociopolitical stability in the face of recurrent
social conflict and rebellion. Two regions of the country that had experienced what was
widely perceived as an ethnically motivated rebellion (the northern Cordilleras and the
Muslim regions of Mindanao) during the Marcos years were placed under a special
autonomy arrangement. However, even in those regions without such a special status,
decentralization in the form of the Local Government Code can be seen as “a principal
means to improve security by bringing government closer to the people” (Siegle and
O’Mahony, 2006, p. 39). Significantly, in those areas of the peninsula with a significant rebel
presence, the restoration of democratic state rule on the local level went hand in hand with
brutal counterinsurgency efforts that involved vigilantes and paramilitary units supported by
local (would-be) politicians (Van der Kroef, 1988; Hedman & Sidel, 2000). As confirmed by
field research findings, many of these vigilantes were later transformed into state-sanctioned
security forces (Kreuzer, 2009) such as the Civilian Volunteer Organization (CVO), a
supposedly unarmed barangay (village) level police force.
While decentralization was in large part a response to the authoritarian excesses of the
Marcos regime, the Local Government Code was not a radical move away from a historically
rooted centralism (Legaspi, 2001). Rather, based on this concise historical overview, it
should be seen as a return to, and arguably a radicalization of, a longstanding tradition of
decentralized statebuilding and counterinsurgency through local politicians (Hutchcroft, 2000;
Wong, 2006). Indeed, critical observers were quick to point out that the ‘democratic’
transition soon turned out to be nothing more than a restoration of the elitist pre-Marcos
institutional structure, including a return to traditional-style patronage- and coercion-based
local politics (Hutchcroft & Rocamora, 2003). Seen from this perspective, instead of resulting
in increased participation or greater social equity, decentralization risked further entrenching
local bosses (Hedman & Sidel, 2000). This article seeks to build on –and hopefully qualify–
these observations, through an empirical investigation of the impact of decentralization on
the controversial domain of mineral resource governance where, as we will see,
decentralization has unleashed a range of open-ended struggles over future institutional
trajectories, and the associated distribution of mineral resource wealth.
4. MINERAL RESOURCE GOVERNANCE IN AN ERA OF DECENTRALIZATION
4.1. The 1995 Mining Act as the centralist basis of mineral resource governance
While Spanish colonialism (which lasted from the early 16
th
century until 1898) failed to
subjugate the entire peninsula, it did lay the basis for a highly centralized system of mineral
resource governance centered around the Regalian doctrine, which vests ownership of
public lands and all mineral resources in the (colonial) state. Notwithstanding a brief
experiment with a freehold system under US rule, subsequent post-independence
governments upheld this centralist spirit, which reached its climax during the Marcos years
(Cabalda, Banaag, Tidalgo & Garces, 2002). While under Marcos the mining sector was
formally regulated through Presidential Decree 463, in reality it was governed by ‘special
deals’ that benefited Marcos’ intimate circle of cronies (Clad, 1988). Amidst mounting
economic and political instability, the Marcos regime gradually lost control over the mining
sector, which increasingly fell prey to mismanagement and corruption (Lopez, 1992). This
corporate mining crisis was aggravated by a global commodity crisis in the 1980s, when a
combination of increased mineral supply and decreasing demand, mainly due to the global
economic downturn, led to a collapse of mineral prices (Maizels, 1992). Ultimately, many
large-scale mining companies were forced to shut down their operations. As will be
discussed in section 4.4, this large-scale mining crisis also provided the space for a dramatic
expansion of small-scale gold mining.
Subsequent governments in the post-Marcos era undertook a series of regulatory
interventions aimed at reviving the fledgling mining sector. This eventually culminated, in
1995, in Republic Act No. 7942, “an act instituting a new system of mineral resources
exploration, development, utilization and conservation”. Better known as the ‘Mining Act’, RA
7942 upheld the centralist spirit of the Regalian Doctrine, by stating that “Mineral resources
are owned by the State and the exploration, development, utilization, and processing thereof
shall be under its full control and supervision. The State may directly undertake such
activities or it may enter into mineral agreements with contractors.” (Republic Act No. 7942,
1995: ch.I, s.2). The authority to administer and dispose of the state’s mineral resource
reserves was vested in the secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources, and is effectively administered by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB),
one of the line agencies of the Department of Environment and Natural Resourcess (DENR)
(Ibid.: ch.II, s.8-9). The MGB now has several mineral-tenurial instruments at its disposal to
issue mining rights, including Exploration Permits (EP), Financial Technical Assistance
Agreements (FTAA), and Mineral Production Sharing Agreements (MPSA). With notable
exceptions, including those areas covered by existing (small-scale) mining rights, mining
rights can cover “all mineral resources in public or private lands” (Ibid.: ch.III, s.18).
In all, the Mining Act provided for a fairly clear-cut system of mineral resource governance,
which centralized control over mineral resources in the hands of the national government. It
aroused enthusiasm among (foreign) mining companies, and the number of mining
applications increased dramatically over the following years and decades. As of January 31,
2014, there existed a total of 40 exploration permits covering 199,122 hectares, 339 MPSAs
covering 602,012 hectares, and 6 FTAAs covering 108,872 hectares
1
.
4.2. Decentralization and institutional ambiguities in mineral resource governance
However, as noted by a long-time observer of the Philippine mining sector, the congressional
deliberations that eventually produced the Mining Act were completely detached not only
from realities on the ground, where small-scale mining had undergone a dramatic expansion;
but also from a broader trend towards decentralization, spawned by a combination of short-
term political considerations and long-term concerns over democratization and security
(Edwin Domingo, former assistant director of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, personal
communication, March 2, 2014). Significant for our purposes, this move towards
decentralization also involved efforts to devolve control over mineral resources to a range of
subnational actors.
First, the Local Government Code gave LGUs significant discretion over the issuance of
permits and franchises, and over the enforcement of national environmental laws, stipulating
that any project or program that “may cause pollution, climatic change, depletion of non-
renewable resources, loss of cropland, rangeland, or forest cover, and extinction of animal or
plant species” requires the approval of affected LGUs (Republic Act No. 7160, s. 27-28).
Furthermore, in addition to automatic Internal Revenue Allotments (IRA) from the national
government, LGUs also became entitled to a share of ‘resource rents’ collected from
activities involving the development of mineral resources within their territorial jurisdiction
(Clark, 1999). Finally, LGUs were given control over small-scale mining (Republic Act No.
7160, s. 484).
Prior to 1991, artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) was regulated by Presidential Decree
1899, a highly permissive permit system that was put in place by the Marcos government in
1984, allegedly to divert some of the ASM-gold into central bank coffers (anonymous
respondent, personal communication, March 4, 2014; see also Clad, 1988). In line with the
broader trend towards decentralization and democratization, in 1991 congress enacted
Republic Act 7076, or the ‘People’s Small Scale Mining Act’. RA 7076 created provincial/city
mining regulatory boards (P/CMRB) that were mandated to segregate ASM-areas (Minahang
Bayan) in public lands and to issue contracts inside these areas pending the consent of
(potential) existing rights holders. Chaired by the MGB regional director, these mining
regulatory boards are composed of representatives of respectively the local executive (the
provincial governor or city mayor), small-scale mining, large-scale mining, and civil society.
However, key informants from different provinces suggested that in practice these boards, if
functional at all, are dominated by the local executive, who retains a high degree of discretion
over the issuance of permits.
Finally, the same spirit of bottom-up empowerment eventually enabled the legislation of
Republic Act 8371 (“an act to recognize, protect and promote the rights of indigenous cultural
communities/indigenous peoples”) in 1997 (Eder and McKenna, 2008). While the Indigenous
People’s Rights Act (IPRA) is not usually treated as an expression of decentralization, it
nonetheless entails a radical devolution of rights over natural resources to indigenous
communities. More specifically, the IPRA’s main focus lies on the recognition of political-
territorial ancestral domain rights that amount to (near-) complete property rights, formalized
through Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titles (CADT) awarded by the National Commission
on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP). Both the implementation and evaluation of the IPRA focus on
the (hampered) process of Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC), whereby outsiders need
to secure the explicit consent of the majority of the indigenous community in order to secure
“any license, lease or permit for the exploitation of natural resources” (Republic Act No.
8371, s. 46(a)), usually in exchange for some kind of royalty.
Significantly, these different laws co-exist uneasily not only with each other, but also with the
centralist provisions of the 1995 Mining Act. According to the same observer cited earlier,
“there were no real efforts to synchronize the Mining Act with the ‘special laws’. We did not
want to tackle the special laws, we trusted that local bodies would work out which law was
appropriate (…) if necessary they can go back to old laws” (Edwin Domingo, personal
communication, March 2, 2014). Together, this plethora of overlapping laws gives rise to a
highly heterogeneous system of mineral resource governance, whereby different government
levels and -agencies create contradictory and overlapping laws and administrative rules. In
line with the analytical framework proposed in section two, this institutional ambiguity
provides room for incremental institutional change, understood as the renegotiation of the
institutional arrangements that distribute mineral resource wealth across society. This
renegotiation of institutional arrangements is an intensely political process, that often
produces conflicts on the ground. In order to substantiate this argument, and in order to
make sense of current and future trajectories of institutional change, the remainder of this
section provides an empirical analysis of the three major axes around which conflicts over
the redistribution of mineral resource wealth are currently unfolding.
4.3. Central-local government conflict over large-scale mining
The first type of conflict that has surfaced at least in part due to decentralization are intra-
government conflicts over the expansion of large-scale mining. Increasingly, local politicians
are using the provisions of the Local Government Code to oppose the entry of large-scale
mining (Holden & Jacobsen, 2006). While some LGUs have merely withheld consent for
selected mining projects, others have gone further, implementing moratoria or even an
outright ban on mining activities within their territory. The national government has in turn
undertaken various efforts to counter LGU-opposition to mining projects. The latest of these
efforts is executive order (EO) 79. Issued by president Aquino in 2012, EO 79 can partly be
read as a response to increased anti-mining activism, as it calls for the strict enforcement of
environmental standards, closes a number of areas for mining, and issues a ban on the
issuance of new mineral agreements pending the passage of new legislation on revenue
sharing (Salamat, 2012). At the same time EO 79 calls on LGUs to “confine themselves only
to the imposition of reasonable limitations on mining activities” and “to conform to
regulations, decisions and policies … promulgated and taken by the National Government”
(Executive Order No. 79, 2012, s. 12). In this way EO 79, and subsequent opinions and
memorandums issued by national government officials that confirm the primacy of national
government laws over local ordinances, can be seen as part of a broader attempt on the part
of the current administration to recentralize control over mineral wealth.
Undoubtedly the most widely cited case involving LGU-opposition to large-scale mining is
that of the Tampakan open-pit copper-gold mining project in South Cotabato province, which
is co-owned by Filipino Sagittarius Mining (SMI) and Swiss mining giant Glencore-Xstrata.
On June 29, 2010, South Cotabato provincial Governor Fuentes signed into law a provincial
environmental code that banned the use of open-pit mining methods (Aquiles, 2010).
However, in February 2013, following an order by the MICC (the national coordinating
council for the mining sector created by virtue of Executive Order 79), the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources decided to grant the company its environmental
compliance certificate, thus neglecting the provincial environmental code (“Finally,
Tampakan”, 2013). Rather than fast-tracking the Tampakan project, however, the DENR’s
move is indicative of a near-complete gridlock between the national government and LGUs.
Meanwhile a combination of a deteriorating security situation (in recent years Tampakan has
witnessed a parallel increase in illegal hydraulic mining and communist rebel activity),
increased anti-mining activism (particularly on the part of the church), and last but not least
LGU-opposition, has led to repeated delays in the progress of the Tampakan project. There
are now important indications that Swiss Glencore-Xstrata is planning to divest its majority
share in the Tampakan project, with the company citing the legal uncertainty created by the
provincial ordinance as one of its key motivations (Espejo, 2014).
The Tampakan case illustrates how local politicians emboldened by decentralization have
become key gatekeepers in the large-scale mining sector. However, important questions
remain with regards to their motivation to resist the expansion of large-scale mining. For
Holden and Jacobsen (2006), this opposition stems from an interplay between civil society
activism, a growing awareness about the environmental impacts of mining, and political-
electoral considerations on the part of local politicians. However, countless LGU-officials
indicated that they are not necessarily opposed to large-scale mining as such. Rather, they
are fed up with what they perceive as a top-down decision process: “Whatever the MGB
says, we are expected to comply. And whenever something goes wrong, guess who takes
the blame?” (municipal government official in Compostela Valley, personal communication,
October 12, 2012). More importantly, numerous local government treasurers expressed
frustration over the lack of fiscal benefits associated with large-scale mining. Under the Local
Government Code, LGUs are entitled to a 40 percent share of previous year’s collection of
excise tax from mining activities within their territorial jurisdiction (Clark, 1999). However,
both the collection and redistribution of tax revenues are mired in problems (Gomez, 2010).
The overall tax effort in mining is low compared to that in other sectors, not least because of
a range of fiscal stimuli introduced to encourage investment in the mining industry.
Furthermore, it has proven an arduous task for the relevant government agencies to correctly
estimate output levels in large-scale mining, and consequently to collect accurate amounts of
excise tax. Ultimately, LGU-officials complain about what they perceived as mere “hand-
outs”, about long delays in the “downloading” of LGU-shares, and about the notoriously
intransparant nature of revenue sharing (provincial treasurer of Compostela Valley, personal
communication, October 12, 2012).
4.4. Small-scale mining versus large-scale mining in Compostela Valley province
A second type of conflict, which has become entangled in complex ways with that between
the national government and LGUs, is that between large-scale mining and artisanal and
small-scale mining (ASM). Despite its sheer size, the ASM-sector remains largely absent in
broader societal debates about mining in the Philippines. Instead these debates focus one-
sidedly on large-scale mining. As will be illustrated in this section, the presence of ASM may
in fact be a factor in its own right fuelling local resistance to large-scale mining.
Since the 1980s Compostela Valley province
2
in southeastern Mindanao, the self-proclaimed
“gold mining capital of the Philippines”, has witnessed a massive expansion of ASM. By and
large this expansion has taken place beyond the formal-regulatory control of the national
government, which consequently brands these ASM-activities as illegal. As indicated earlier,
in 1984 the Marcos government undertook a first unsuccessful effort to bring ASM under
national government control, in the form of presidential decree 1899. Likewise, Republic Act
7076 (the ‘People’s Small Scale Mining Act’) of 1991 turned out to be rather unsuccessful as
an instrument for ASM-formalization, with only a very limited number of ASM-operations now
taking place inside Minahang Bayan that have been approved as such by the secretary of
the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. This failure of existing formalization
efforts has various causes, including complex and costly registration procedures, and
nepotism and rent-seeking during the allocation of permits. Arguably more important is that
ASM often takes place inside large-scale mining concessions, without the official consent of
the rights-wielding company. This issue of ‘illegality’ became more pronounced in 2011,
when the government imposed new taxes on gold sales. While the central bank still retains a
legal monopoly on gold buying, most ASM-gold is now diverted through clandestine trading
networks (Francisco, 2012).
These observations feed into allegations on the part of ASM-operators that existing
regulatory frameworks favor large-scale, corporate mining. As one financier described the
current situation: “For us it is like climbing Mount Everest, while for them, they can come in
and slide down the mountain. The paramilitaries are part of the package deal.” (barangay
official and mining financier, personal communication, January 27, 2014). Executive Order 79
was interpreted as the latest illustration of this government bias against ASM, as it seeks to
“contain” it in officially recognized Minahang Bayan, and calls for the creation of a “Task
Force Against Illegal Mining” (Executive Order No. 79, s. 10, s. 11). In addition, mining
companies are calling on the MGB to issue stoppage orders to ASM operating inside their
concession, and are calling in the assistance from local governments, the police, or in some
cases even the military to implement these orders.
At least in the case of Compostela Valley province, however, attempts to root out ASM have
so far proven unsuccesful. Here, images of an all-powerful alliance between ‘the government’
and corporate mining capital, united in their struggle to root out illegal ASM, fail to do justice
to how the sector has become embedded in the local institutional fabric, and has become
intimately entangled with local political interests.
4.4.1. Local politics and the ‘illegal’ mining economy
The initial expansion of small-scale gold mining in the 1980s took place at a highly volatile
time in the history of eastern Mindanao, which was a stronghold of the communist insurgency
of the New People’s Army. Elements from the different armed groups roaming the region
developed a keen interest in the ASM-sector, which was soon controlled by indistinct military-
commercial networks comprised of police officers, army commanders and -intelligence
officers, communist rebels and mining financiers (Verbrugge, 2014). Since democratization
and decentralization in the early 1990s, some of these actors became involved in the local
electoral arena, leading to the emergence of a group of ‘miner-politicians’ that cultivate
intimate connections with ASM-financiers and with the various armed actors operating in the
region, some of which were later recruited into the “private armed groups” (Kreuzer, 2009) of
miner-politicians. Over time distinctions between these private armed groups and state-
sanctioned armed actors such as the Civilian Volunteers Organization, a barangay-level
police force, and the Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit, an irregular auxiliary force of
the AFP, have gradually faded. Slowly but surely, local politicians emerged at the center of
“peculiar coercive arrangements” (Hedman & Sidel, 2000) that provided them with the
coercive leverage necessary to expand their personal, fiscal and regulatory control over the
purportedly ‘illegal’ mining economy.
The mutual entanglement between ASM and local politicians is particularly evident on the
level of the barangay, the lowest government level. In addition to high degrees of personal
involvement in ASM on their part, barangay officials have also developed inventive ways to
extract rents from ASM. More importantly, in several mining areas they are now undertaking
a range of more sophisticated fiscal and administrative interventions in ASM, including the
registration of tunneling agreements between mining financiers and (informal) landowners,
mediation in disputes between tunnel- and/or landowners, and the issuance of business
permits to owners of processing facilities. By the late 2000s, in response to a renewed gold
rush, provincial authorities have even put up a system of checkpoints for the collection of
“environmental user’s fees” and “donations”. Significantly, while the national government
continues to brand the mining activities in question as illegal, most of the fiscal-administrative
interventions in question have a legal basis in the Local Government Code, and are
described in the amended local revenue code of the province.
In recent years provincial authorities have taken this regulatory drive one step further, using
existing regulatory frameworks for ASM to initiate a bottom-up process of formalization. After
the provincial mining regulatory board (PMRB) –which effectively operates at the behest of
the provincial governor– has identified an ASM-area, it will file a formal request in the
regional MGB-office for the technical and commercial evaluation of the area as Minahang
Bayan (staff of Provincial Agriculturalist Office of Compostela Valley, personal
communication, January 18, 2014). According to MGB-officials, ASM-operators will often
present them documents and tax receipts issued by LGUs to underpin their claims to the
area in question. However, since most ASM takes place inside large-scale mining
concessions, even if the area receives a positive technical and commercial evaluation, the
company will not be willing to consent to the regularization of ASM inside its claim. Hence,
the areas in question are now categorized as “proposed Minahang Bayan”. A provincial
government official told the author that the province is now considering an ordinance that
would enable the official recognition, at least on the level of the province, of Minahang Bayan
inside large-scale mining concessions without the consent of the company, provided that the
company “maintains no visible presence on the ground” (Ibid.). Large-scale mining
companies, on their part, continue to approach the MGB to issue stoppage orders against
illegal ASM, which are then delivered by local government officials, a representative of the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources and/or by a delegation of state security
personnel. So far however, these stoppage orders have proven futile, in large part, a mining
company representative claimed, because “Those delivering the stoppage orders are
actually those controlling the small-scale mining. They will take a picture standing next to the
closed tunnel, and one week later it is operating again” (community relations officer of large-
scale mining company, personal communication, January 18, 2014).
So far, this section has drawn attention to how local politicians have taken center stage in the
indistinct politico-military-commercial networks that reign over ASM. These same politicians
are making inventive use of their mandate under decentralization to undertake a series of
fiscal-administrative interventions in the purportedly “illegal” mining economy, thus contesting
the terms of legality itself. What is classified as “illegal” and “illegitimate” by national
government actors, may in fact be the outcome of an exclusionary legal framework, and may
be considered perfectly legitimate on the local level (Lahiri-Dutt, 2007). In fact, several small-
scale mine operators did not have the slightest idea about national regulatory frameworks,
and consider their operations as legal because they were sanctioned by local government
officials. Based on the analytical framework proposed in section two, it could therefore be
argued that local miner-politicians have emerged as agents of incremental institutional
change, capitalizing on the institutional ambiguities produced by decentralization to tilt the
institutional balance in favor of ASM. Meanwhile on the ground, these institutional struggles
stand in constant interaction with real-life conflicts over access to mineral-yielding land,
which involve indistinct coalitions of actors connected with small-scale and/or large-scale
mining interests.
4.4.2. Conflicts over access to mineral wealth
3
The most (in)famous example is that of Diwalwal in Monkayo, where pre-existing tensions
between competing ASM-groups composed of mining financiers and armed actors such as
army intelligence officers, police officers, and (former) communist rebels escalated into a full-
blown underground war in the 1990s, when a large-scale mining company decided to side
with one of these groups (JB mining) in an attempt to gain control over the gold-rich area
(Gonzales & Conde, 2002). By the early 2000s, the conflict had spilled over into the political-
electoral arena. On the one hand barangay authorities, personified by the charismatic
barangay captain Franco Tito, had a clear interest in ASM, not merely on a personal level but
also as a source of fiscal revenues and as a platform to assert their authority. Meanwhile
municipal mayor Joel Brillantes was a former army intelligence officer who had become
engaged in ASM as the strongman of JB mining, but had now joined the ranks of large-scale
mining. In response to the unrest in Diwalwal and surrounding areas, in 2002 president
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo proclaimed a 8100 hectare ‘Diwalwal mineral reservation’ that
would be controlled by the Natural Resources Mining Development Corporation (NRMDC),
the “corporate arm of the DENR” (Bagayaua, 2008). However, the government takeover and
the subsequent militarization of the area failed to defuse tensions. Instead, municipal mayor
Brillantes was using his mayoral prerogatives and allegedly also his contacts in the army to
protect his own mining interests and to harass his ASM-foes. Meanwhile it is a public secret
that the communist New People’s Army continues to profit handsomely from ASM in the form
of revolutionary taxes (this was also confirmed by an International Crisis Group report, see
ICG, 2011). Hence, the Diwalwal conflict intertwines in complex ways with the broader
conflict between the army and the NPA. Mounting tensions and a spate of underground
killings eventually culminated in the murder of mayor Brillantes in June 2003 (“Compostela
Mayor”, 2003). In 2008, the government unveiled a new plan for the mineral reservation,
which would be subdivided in 3 zones (Bagayaua, 2008): a “Tribal Mining Area” (TMA, see
section 4.5), “Mining Investment Areas”
4
, and the Diwalwal gold rush area itself, which was
placed under a very complex arrangement that ultimately failed to alleviate ASM’s concerns
over large-scale mining expansion. In recent years, tensions in and around the mineral
reservation are again on the rise. While the national government is beefing up the presence
of the army, purportedly to protect local communities from ‘extortionist’ communist rebels,
ASM and leftist activists decry the militarization of Diwalwal, claiming that the army is only
there to facilitate a take-over by multinational mining interests (these claims surfaced during
various interviews, but see also “Army deploys”, 2010).
A second example is that of New Bataan, where, in the mid-2000s, PHILCO mining was
confronted with a sudden expansion of ASM inside its exploration claim. PHILCO responded
by beefing up its security forces, and by securing stoppage orders from the MGB regional
office in Davao City. These orders were delivered to ASM-operators by delegations of
DENR-staff, municipal and barangay officials, police, and in one instance even army
personnel. Rather than leading to a stoppage of ASM, however, indistinct elements affiliated
with ASM and according to some also with the communist NPA, started harassing (and in
one instance killing) PHILCO-guards, and repeatedly torched the company’s equipment. The
situation became even more complicated in the late 2000s, when ASM-operators with the
support of politicians at the municipal and provincial level, organized themselves into an
association, and applied for the segregation of a “Minahang Camanlangan” (named after the
barangay hosting the mining area). By the time of the last visit to the area, ASM was still in
firm control. And while PHILCO had effectively transferred its rights to two other mining
companies, Batoto resources and Agusan Metals Corporation, these companies did not have
a significant presence in the area, and the few remaining employees –ironically mostly local
landowners that were collecting royalties from ASM themselves– admitted that it was very
difficult if not impossible for the company to operate in the area.
4.4.3. Towards a win-win solution?
Ultimately, the current situation in Compostela Valley is best described as a “strategic
stalemate”. On the one hand, large-scale mining concessionaires wielding formal mining
rights are having a hard time to effectively exercise these rights due to the persistence of
ASM. On the other hand, ASM-operators now see their mining rights recognized in local
institutional arrangements, but face a range of obstacles –not least the overlap with large-
scale mining– that prevent the official recognition of these rights on the national government
level.
Nearly all of the actors involved –except (most) large-scale mining companies– now
recognize the need to move towards a win-win solution. Even MGB-officials in the Davao
City regional office were not entirely unsympathetic to the idea of working out a solution that
is acceptable both for ASM and for large-scale mining, mainly because: “It is our job to
promote mining (…) but now there are too many companies that are just speculating, just
holding on to their claim as a future asset (…) this is our problem now” (staff in MGB-regional
office in Davao City, personal communication, January 24, 2014). However, important
questions remain with regards to the willingness of large-scale mining to move towards such
a win-win solution, and with regards to who would eventually benefit from such a solution.
Initial observations suggest that corporate actors are now realigning, identifying local agents
that can help tilt the institutional balance in their favor. Based on the preceding analysis, it
should not come as a complete surprise that local politicians form one of their key targets,
and several politicians previously sympathetic towards ASM have now openly aired their
support for large-scale mining. Particularly in recent years, another important institutional
player has entered the scene, namely tribal groups claiming priority rights over mineral
resources and associated royalties under the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act.
4.5. The IPRA, the mining sector, and tribal conflicts
The legislation of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) in 1997 aroused significant
opposition, not least on the part of the Philippine Chamber of Mines and the MGB, who
argued that granting indigenous communities priority rights over their ancestral domain and
over the (mineral) resources underlying it violated the constitutionally enshrined principle of
state ownership of public lands and minerals (Eder & Mckenna, 2008). Others have drawn
attention to the hampered implementation of the IPRA, and how it fits in with a broader trend
towards the dispossession of indigenous communities by mining companies (Holden,
Nadeau & Jacobsen, 2011). This section, like the previous one, seeks to qualify this
dominant analytical focus on dispossession from above, by means of an admittedly initial
discussion of tribal conflicts over mineral wealth unleashed by the IPRA, which can be seen
as yet another illustration of the spirit of decentralization (see section 4.2).
4.5.1. The ahistorical IPRA and indigenous ‘communities’
To understand the impact of the IPRA on local institutional arrangements, we first need to
critically evaluate its definition of Indigenous Peoples as “historically differentiated from the
majority of Filipinos” (Republic Act No. 8371, 1997: s. 3(h)). By invoking an image of isolation
and uniqueness, this definition obscures a long history of interaction between upland pagans
and Christian lowlanders, which resulted in a serious distortion of traditional indigenous
structures –a notoriously indistinct concept to begin with. Even prior to the IPRA, the
Philippine state undertook various efforts to deal with the upland population, including the
creation of different special bodies, agencies and programs (Eder & McKenna, 2008).
Meanwhile increased upland migration on the part of non-indigenous settlers, combined with
processes of economic modernization, resulted in processes of social differentiation across
the indigenous / non-indigenous divide (Dressler & Turner, 2008). Particularly (but not
exclusively) in Mindanao, parts of the upland population were also recruited for insurgency or
counterinsurgency purposes, spurring further divisions in upland communities (Asia Watch
Committee, 1992).
Last but not least, the proliferation of political-administrative (barangay-, municipal, provincial
and regional) boundaries that cross-cut the ancestral domain had a profound impact on
indigenous authority structures. Particularly following democratization and decentralization in
the early 1990s, many datus (the local term for a traditional leader) became directly (as
candidates) or indirectly (as vote brokers) involved in political-electoral competition; a trend
that was, somewhat paradoxically, encouraged by the National Commission of Indigenous
Peoples when it called for the mandatory representation of indigenous peoples in local
legislative councils in 2009 (NCIP administrative order No. 001, s. 2009). As confirmed by
various key respondents, this created opportunities for local politicians to expand their
patronage networks into the indigenous community; and for educated, rich, or “brave” tribals
to assert themselves as datus.
Ultimately, when NCIP-staff are talking about “organizing a community” (i.e. identifying its
leaders and delineating its ancestral domain), they are dealing with an upland population
divided along the lines of class, clan affiliation, the insurgency-counterinsurgency divide, and
last but not least dynamic political-electoral alliances. Given these cross-cutting cleavages, it
should not come as a complete surprise that the entry of mining and associated royalties
entails risks for conflict.
4.5.2. Mining royalties and tribal conflicts in Compostela Valley province
5
Gold-rich Diwalwal can again serve as a good empirical illustration. After the enactment of
the IPRA in 1997, different datus claiming to represent the Mandaya, Mansaka, Dibabawon
and Manguanggan tribes, started filing overlapping ancestral domain claims over the area
that contained the Diwalwal gold rush area. These competing tribal groups were connected
with the different mining groups that were fighting over Diwalwal’s rich gold deposits, and that
included not only armed actors but also miner-politicians (Canuday, 2008; see section 4.4).
The subsequent nationalization of Diwalwal in 2002 went hand in hand with an effort to pacify
the indigenous community. In close coordination with the different tribal groups, the NCIP
started working towards a reunification effort, eventually resulting in the issuance of
Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title 0702-0007 to the ‘four tribes of Monkayo’ (Canuday,
2008). However, while the indigenous problem was now legally settled, by no means did this
solution end in-fighting within the tribal community. Things even got worse after the creation,
in 2008, of the tribal mining areas (TMA): those parts of the Diwalwal mineral reservation
wherein the four tribes of Monkayo could exercise their priority rights. After the four tribes
had entered into a joint venture with the Philippine Mining Development Corporation and
started looking for investors, different tribal leaders signed agreements –allegedly “in
exchange for a signing bonus of millions” (tribal leader from Monkayo, personal
communication, 12 February 2012)– that covered overlapping areas. The resulting
competition led to a spate of killings in the tribal community that continues until this day
(“Mining Firm”, 2011).
A second example is that of Maco, where royalties from APEX mining –currently the only
large-scale mining company in Compostela Valley province that is currently in the production
stage– are sowing discord in the Mansaka tribe. In 2003, the NCIP provincial office
supported the formation of an association that convened indigenous land claimants from the
different “impact barangays”, i.e. those barangays directly affected by the APEX-operations.
This association, SIMI, was dominated by the Onlos clan, which was headed by a certain
datu Onlos. In 2008, after the Mansaka tribe was issued its CADT, APEX started paying
royalties to both SIMI and MDCI, another organization controlled by Datu Onlos that was set
up as a vehicle for the redistribution of APEX-royalties over 29 barangays that have a
Mansaka mandatory representative. In 2010, however, datu Onlos was killed, and soon after
this a new organization was created with the assistance of NCIP, APEX and last but not least
local politicians. While this new organization, MIPADMA, also absorbed several MDCI-
members, others were sidelined, and there are now several barangays with both MDCI- and
MIPADMA-aligned datus, with the latter now on the receiving end of the royalty sharing. As in
the Diwalwal case, electoral politics played a key role in sowing discord in the tribal
community. 2010, the year of datu Onlos’ killing and of MIPADMA’s creation, was an
important election year, and many MIPADMA-members became acting mandatory tribal
representatives on the barangay- or municipal level; or at least have a clear affiliation with
local politicians. Also telling in this regard is the ongoing construction (in February 2014) of
an 11 million peso (around US$ 250000) tribal hall, next to the municipal hall.
To be sure, these tribal conflicts over ancestral domain rights and associated royalties are
embedded in a broader and much more complex conflict ecology. However, both in Maco
and in Monkayo the situation at the time of the research was too volatile and sensitive to get
to the heart of the matter without jeopardizing the security of the researcher or, more
importantly, that of his respondents; and there was a general reluctance to discuss many of
the issues at hand. Some tentative and more general observations can nonetheless be
made. First, these tribal conflicts stand in close connection with political-electoral
competition, and initial evidence suggests that –in line with the situation in countries such as
Ethiopia (Hagman & Mulugeta, 2008) and neighboring Indonesia (Schulte Nordholt & van
Klinken, 2007), the decentralization of resources on the basis of ethnicity fosters the growth
of patronage networks that convene local politicians and ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’. Secondly,
because several (self-proclaimed) tribal leaders have a longstanding involvement in ASM,
these tribal conflicts also intertwine with the conflict between ASM and large-scale mining
described in section 4.4. For example, the late datu Onlos was known to be involved in ASM,
and was a staunch opponent of the further expansion of large-scale mining in Maco (“Auction
of Davao”, 2009). Thirdly, these tribal conflicts interact in complex ways with the broader
conflict between the Philippine government and the communist NPA. As one datu from
Monkayo stated: “Every tribe has its own security strategy (…) some join the
counterinsurgency of the AFP (…) if you don’t join you get killed because they say you are a
communist” (IP-leader from Monkayo, personal communication, February 2012).
5. CONCLUDING REMARKS
In the first instance this article has aimed to make a contribution to broader debates on the
relationship between decentralization and conflict. It did so by proposing a conceptual-
analytical framework that draws central attention to the ways in which decentralization offers
opportunities for incremental institutional change, understood as a renegotiation of the ways
in which power and resources are distributed across society. Such a renegotiation of
institutional arrangements is a political process par excellence, and often goes hand in hand
with conflicts on the ground.
The added value of this analytical approach was illustrated on the basis of the situation in the
Philippine mining sector, producing a second set of more context-specific arguments.
Various legislative efforts to decentralize control over mineral resource wealth to subnational
actors co-exist uneasily with the centralist provisions of the Philippine Mining Act, purportedly
still the basis of mineral resource governance in the country. This has given rise to a highly
heterogeneous and ambiguous institutional arena, wherein a broad array of actors are now
contesting the redistribution of mineral resource wealth. In an attempt to make sense of
these complex institutional struggles, three major cleavages were identified around which
mineral resource conflicts are now crystallizing, namely intra-government conflicts over
fiscal-regulatory authority in the mining sector, conflicts between small-scale- and large-scale
mining over access to mineral-yielding land, and conflicts between tribal groups seeking to
secure ancestral domain rights and associated royalties. Hence, rather than increasing
sociopolitical stability, seemingly uncoordinated efforts to decentralize mineral resource
governance have increased local mineral resource conflicts, by enabling a broad range of
actors to stake competing claims to mineral wealth.
To be sure, the outcomes of these conflicts over institutional arrangements –which are
increasingly producing violent confrontations on the ground– are not necessarily negative.
Instead they may produce substantial emancipatory effects in the form of a redistribution of
mineral resource rents to a greater number of people. In line with the new “localist paradigm”
in natural resource management (Arellano-Yanguas, 2011), many would consider increased
local control over resources –whether in the hands of small-scale miners or indigenous
communities– to be a good thing. However, while decentralization may indeed have offered
opportunities for the redistribution of resource wealth in favor of selected local actors, two
worrying trends are gradually becoming apparent.
First, partly as a product of ongoing decentralization efforts, but also as a legacy of a longer
history of decentralized statebuilding, local politicians now play a key role in existing
institutional arrangements, and will likely continue to do so in the future. In line with concerns
raised by critical observers of decentralization in other countries, this raises important
concerns over elite capture. These concerns are particularly pressing when considering a
second trend, namely the gradual (re)concentration of control over mineral resource wealth.
On the one hand, mining companies are slowly adjusting their strategies to local institutional
realities by identifying key actors –particularly local politicians and tribal leaders– that can
help tilt the institutional balance in their favor. On the other hand –and this is an issue that
has not been dealt with in depth in this article– there is a parallel trend towards the
professionalization and capitalization of ASM under the tutelage of a heterogeneous group of
‘capital interests’, composed of mining financiers, royalty-receiving landowners, armed rent-
seekers and, last but not least, local miner-politicians (Verbrugge, 2014). On the losing end
of this equation is a massive labor force that is increasingly bereft of meaningful access to
mineral resource wealth
6
.
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1
A regularly updated list of all approved mining permits and contracts is available online on
http://mgb.gov.ph/lptt.aspx.
2
At the time Compostela Valley was still part of Davao del Norte province. It only became a separate
province in 1998.
3
The following accounts are based on a combination of key respondent interviews and scarce (online)
media coverage.
4
Those parts of the reservation with low population density that are believed to be highly mineralized,
and where mining rights would be awarded through competitive tender (Bagayaua, 2008).
5
The following accounts are based on a combination of key respondent interviews and scarce (online)
media coverage.
6
This argument is further developed in a seperate contribution that has been submitted for peer
review.
