VISIT MINING AREA AT ANTAMOK

During the IP Conference, on the 14 March,2006, I have chance to visit small-scale mining area at Antamok.It is located between barangays Loacan and Ucab in Itogon. Antamok had been mined intermittently by the Ibaloy and the Kankanaey since before the Spanish arrived here in 1620.Up until recently, the Ibaloy and the Kankanaey referred to Antamok as a pancutcutan or digging site (lode mining location), as opposed to a panacupan or scooping site (placer mining location). There are about 1,100 household living in this barangays, few members of the community still engage in small-scale mining because little ore is left at those depths that are accessible to their technology. Most of the household in both barangays Loacan and Ucab now engage in a mix of livelihood activities predominated by agriculture and odd jobs in the city.