30/08/2026
BEHIND THE NOISE IN KASIBU
BY LEIF C. DAHL
TVJ Columnist
In Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya, the noise is loud. Barricades. Police sirens. Facebook Live videos of arrests. Chanting against mining. Anger on both sides.
But behind that noise, Gov. Jose V. Gambito, a lawyer by profession, is working quietly. That is the part many do not see.
Last Friday, Aug. 28, at about 4 p.m., personnel of North Luzon Mineral Resources Corp. (NLMRC) tried to enter its exploration and drilling site in Barangay Pacquet. About 800 residents, according to lawyer Fidel Santos, counsel for the anti-mining group, blocked the municipal road.
The police responded to a 911 call. A confrontation followed. Eleven residents — eight men and three women from Pacquet, Dine and Catarawan — were arrested. Two were reportedly injured. They may face charges of grave coercion and resistance and disobedience to a person in authority.
On video, it looks like a simple story: protesters versus police and the company.
What the video did not show was a phone call.
Kasibu police chief Capt. Lloyd Guillermo said it himself: "The governor called to ask about the situation and instructed us to see how the tension could be eased and to make sure that nobody would get hurt."
That is Gambito's style. He does not go live on Facebook. He does not issue a long statement. He calls the chief on the ground and says: keep people safe.
Anyone who knows the Kasibu mining issue knows there are not two sides, but three — and all three are Novo Vizcayanos.
First, the anti-mining group — farmers, women, youth, church workers — who fear for their water, their rice fields and their future. Their fear is real. Perhaps, they have seen what mining has done elsewhere.
Second, the pro-mining group — also from Kasibu, also from Pacquet, Dine and Catarawan — who see exploration as a chance for jobs, road improvement and economic activity in a remote upland town. Their need is also real.
Third, the Bugkalot tribe — the Indigenous owners of the ancestral domain. After a long process with the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), they gave their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to allow NLMRC to conduct exploration. It was not a signature done in a day. It was community assemblies, debates within the tribe, conditions and benefits discussed. That consent is an exercise of their right to self-determination. It cannot be erased.
Gov. Gambito is working diligently in the middle of those three.
What is he doing? If you ask the Capitol, there is no press release. But if you ask people around him, you will hear about the quiet work.
He has been talking to the NCIP and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Mines and Geosciences Bureau (DENR-MGB), not to get a pro-mining clearance, but to be sure what an exploration permit really allows — and what it does not allow. Exploration is not extraction.
He has been talking to Bugkalot elders to ensure that their consent was informed and that whatever was promised to the tribe — protection of sacred sites, royalties, jobs — will be honored and transparent, not just between the company and a few leaders.
He has been talking to anti-mining leaders and to the Church (religious groups) to ensure that protest is not criminalized and that environmental safeguards are non-negotiable. He knows that you cannot have genuine peace if 800 people feel they were not heard.
He has been talking to the Kasibu local government — to Vice Mayor Alberto Bumolo and the Sangguniang Bayan — to make sure that local ordinances, especially on the municipal road, are enforced without using the Philippine National Police (PNP) as a private es**rt.
Guillermo himself clarified: "We deny that this was an es**rt operation. The PNP cannot simply conduct an es**rt without the proper request and procedures. What we did was purely a police response because they have the right to pass through. There is no law preventing them from using a road that has been declared a municipal road."
And the governor has been telling the police to stay neutral.
"The PNP remains neutral and does not take sides. Whoever needs police assistance, we will respond," Guillermo said.
That neutrality is not weakness. That is strategy for a win-win solution.
What does a win-win mean in Kasibu? It does not mean everyone will be happy. It means no one is crushed.
For the anti-mining group, a win means their blockade is recognized as a legitimate expression of concern, not just obstruction, and that any exploration will have independent environmental monitoring, protection of water sources and a clear agreement that exploration does not automatically mean mining.
For the Bugkalot tribe, a win means their FPIC is respected by all — including activists and government — and that their decision for their ancestral domain is protected, with benefits truly reaching the community.
For the pro-mining residents and NLMRC, a win means due process is respected — that if they have legal permits and if the road is a municipal road, they have a right to be heard, but with the obligation to be transparent, not to force entry and to sit at the table.
That is why what happened after the arrests matters more than the arrests themselves.
Bumolo and members of the Sangguniang Bayan arrived and held a dialogue. Two options were discussed. Option 1 was to allow NLMRC equipment and personnel to enter but leave the fuel behind. The residents rejected it. Option 2 was to temporarily prevent any entry while leaders, NLMRC and the police continue talks. Everyone agreed on Option 2.
That temporary moratorium is not in any press release from the Capitol. It came from the ground, but it was made possible because the order from the top was to ease tensions, not to escalate.
The blockade in Pacquet remains. The 11 arrested are awaiting legal process. The Sangguniang Bayan of Kasibu will meet on Tuesday with leaders of the anti-mining group and representatives of the mining company to seek a resolution.
That Tuesday meeting will be noisy again. But behind it, expect the same quiet work.
Gambito does not tell the world he is working. He just works — for that difficult, unpopular but necessary middle where the anti-mining group, the pro-mining group and the Bugkalot tribe who agreed to let NLMRC conduct exploration in their ancestral domain can all still call Nueva Vizcaya home. LIFTED FROM The Valley Journal News Online
