Fr. Emeterio Barcelon, SJ By Fr. Emeterio Barcelon, SJ   As everyone can dream, I would like to dream of a peaceful and prosperous Mindanao where poverty is kept to the minimum. Potential has been the name of Mindanao but prosperity can be the target as well as the achievement of the present generation. Many now identify themselves as sons of Mindanao and I am one of them. I have been a resident of Mindanao since 1974 which is 44 years by now. But I first visited Mindanao when I was a young student and that was in 1954 or 64 years ago. From Cagayan de Oro to Malaybalay in Bukidnon it took six hours on a bus which now takes only less than two hours. The same thing goes for going from Cagayan de Oro to Gingoog in the east. It took eight hours in an open bus and after the trip, all passengers were completely smothered with dust so that a shower was necessary. Now it only takes about two hours to make the same trip and if you go by the new mountain road, it will only take about an hour and a half. On the trip to Malaybalay, we were guests of Nora Meding Fortich, the most influential person in Malaybalay at the time. They had a love-hate relationship with the American parish priest of Malaybalay. She once paid a boy to steal the bullhorn placed up the telegraph pole because it bothered her when it blared the Angelus in the early morning. But on father’s birthday she would cancel all his debts from the lumber store she had. As we crossed the Polangui River, the natives drummed up the crocodiles and fed them with pigs’ blood. That night in the Fortich ranch, we saw in the dark the bright eyes of the black half-breed buffalo. The natives told us that one of their companions walked more than 20 kilometer in order to see a bus which he had never seen. Another was able to procure a pair of sneakers who had to give them up when they serenaded him that night as was the custom at the time. As we passed what is now the thriving town of Valencia, we could hardly see the sun at noon time because of the tall trees of the forest. Don Filemon Rodriguez and President Quezon thought that if they harnessed the hydro potential of the Agus River, it would turn Mindanao into an industrial area. The Agus now provides most of the power needs of Mindanao but it is far from supplying enough of its electricity needs. It could double the power it now produces if it is bidded out to the private sector since the government has inhibited itself from doing power generation. The Polangui River source could also double its capacity if harnessed properly. The Agusan River could also be contained so that the flood plains of Agusan could be turned into rice fields which could supply all the rice needs of the nation, substituting for the Luzon Central Plains. Southern Mindanao or Cotabato could also produce all the corn that the nation needs. More hydro power can also be produced by harnessing of other the rivers of Mindanao. Former Secretary of Energy. Ernesto Aboitiz used to say that there are 20 large hydro power potentials in Mindanao that could be harnessed. But the real potential of Mindanao is in mining. Some of its gold mines have helped a lot of people. Diwalwal with its small-scale mining has produced an average of two kilos of gold over the past 30 years, most of it smuggled out to Singapore or Japan. Nickel has been the mineral of recent years. The Chinese miners do not bother to process the ore here but ship it raw because it is profitable to haul it with its almost 2% grade of nickel. In Tampacan we have the potential of the largest copper mine in the world. The present dispensation is against mining. But mining is our only hope of lifting our nation out of poverty. We have been left behind in manufacturing as well as in services. Mining is a real potential. There are three faults that cross Mindanao from north to south. The eastern has given us the gold of North Davao and the nickel that goes from Surigao to Davao Sur to Tawi-Tawi. There has been some mining the western side in Zamboanga but the central trough has hardly been touched except for the illegal camote mining near Cagayan de Oro.