|
|
|
|
About 300,000 small miners working on high grade gold pocket deposits depend on the small mine operations to support their families. Most of them are located in the North Davao area but there are more scattered all over Mindanao. These areas are not accessible to companies and the presence of authority to imposed environmental regulations, safety or mining rights and regulations is most always not welcome. Amindst the apparent chaos, they have evolved some form of informal rules and regulations to get by. "Querpo or Korpo" stands for corporation. Querpo is the corporate structure. The important character of a successful querpo is fairness, equity and consensus. It may consist of 5 or so peple to as much as 100 depending on the reserve they are working on. A typical querpo consist of the miners called "abantero", the miller called "molero" and the "pinanser" or the financier administrator. There is a negotiated sharing scheme that is adjusted according to the situation. Transmigration Re-engineering for small operations The re-engineering of a transmigration model for the small mine operation will use the Querpo structure. The enhancement is the input of technology into the Querpo in terms of a more efficient, safe mining and milling operation. This is accomplished by infusion of small mine technologies from Australia and USA. In case of small operations like querpo gold mining where no main industry can be established in the transmigration model, a collection system can substitute the main industry. The transmigration community will be established at the point of collection where produce are centrally processed and sold and materials are centrally purchased and sold. This is patterned after the Trading Post paradigm in the pioneering days in the West. In this case, a new site is not required. The transmigration community can integrate to what is already a town. For North Davao operations, this could be Tagum which is proximate to Apokon and Masara. And for Agusan Bonanza, this could be Agusan. |