ABSTRACT
The Antamok mine launched in 1903 industrial mining in the Philippines through Benguet Corporation (BC) whose beginnings, growth, decline and change in business portfolio reflect the vicissitudes of several political administrations, economic policies, and socio-political conditions in the Philippines. The company had modified the physical and social landscapes of Itogon, a mining locality where the indigenous Ibaloy had mined gold in pre-colonial times. After more than four decades of underground operations, BC launched in 1989 the Antamok Gold Project which involved open pit bulk mining. Several communities, representing seven out of nine barangays of Itogon municipality, resisted the project through barricades and marches. With the help of urban-based NGOs, they opposed the open pit operation because it entailed the destruction by heavy equipment of their ancestral lands and homes. It threatened their livelihood and way of life. The resistance lasted three years when BC eventually suspended the project in April 1998, and put the Antamok open pit mine on care and maintenance status. At present, the Antamok landscape includes the huge open pit, which has become an open field for numerous illegal small-scale miners. The company aims to convert the pit into an engineered sanitary landfill.
