Officials of the Region 12 police and two other government agencies are to intensify their crackdown on small-scale copper and gold mining in Tampakan, South Cotabato after two miners got drowned in rampaging floodwaters that swept through their clandestine mine site in the municipality.

Local executives and police officials in South Cotabato had reported that the incident left two residents, Johnry Samling and Richard Sumali, dead. They also confirmed that Samling and Sumali were engaged in “banlas,” or sluice gold mining using only farming tools and portable motor-driven water pumps.

Radio reports on Wednesday, August 13, 2025 in Central Mindanao cities and provinces stated that officials of the Police Regional Office-12, under Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, and Felix Alicer and Efren Carido, directors of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-12 and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau-12, respectively, are to cooperate in addressing the banlas operations in Tampakan.

The three officials had separately said the national government had only contracted one legitimate firm, the Sagittarius Mines Incorporated, or SMI, to mine for copper and gold in Tampakan, but has not started operating still since its inception some two decades ago.

Alicer had said that the SMI and the DENR-12 have common projects aimed at addressing illegal mining in Tampakan and are collaborating in educating villagers on the bad effects of environmentally-hazardous banlas operation.

Officials of the DENR-12 and MGB-12 and employees of the SMI and traditional leaders in Tampakan have long been cooperating in addressing banlas activities in the municipality even as the firm has not operated the Tampakan Copper-Gold Project yet as contracted by Malacañang, according to municipal officials and ethnic Blaan leaders.

“We in PRO-12 will support the efforts of the DENR-12 and the MGB 12 in putting an end to all forms of illegal mining activities in that municipality,” Macapaz said.

DENR-12 and MGB-12 employees had told reporters that legitimate mining firms have extensive environmental-protection thrusts in areas permitted to operate by the government.

Photo shows the mineral-rich Blaan ancestral lands in Tampakan, guarded tightly by different government agencies from small-scale illegal gold miners. (August 13, 2025, Koronadal City, South Cotabato Region 12)