A team from Mines and Geosciences Bureau Regional Office No. V (MGB-ROV) headed by Supervising Geologist Jose Marcel S. Laud conducted an assessment for White Clay Mineral Reservation in the Municipality of Siruma and Tinambac, Camarines Sur. The activity lasted for more than two (2) weeks starting October 03 and ended in October 22, 2018.

Focus Group Discussion (FGD) was conducted on all the eleven barangays covered by the mineral reservation. It aims to inform the people regarding the mineral reservation, its declaration, the geology and type of deposit in the area, its economic uses, and the government’s thrust on the development of present reservation areas.

Geophysical exploration by means of electrical resistivity and Ground Penetrating Radar surveys was also done to delineate the extent of the white clay deposit in the mineral reservation area. Seventeen (17) Vertical Electrical Sounding / VES points were established having an orientation of North 15º East perpendicular to the average strike of the schists. These VES points were used by the survey team to run their respective instruments.

White clay deposit was first encountered in 1933 in the Sitio Napu, Bahao by Mr. Ramon Abarquez, Chief, Geological Survey Division, Bureau of Mines, Manila.  By then, several geological assessment of the area and its economic potential were conducted by the MGB-ROV and MGB Central Office. Due to its economic potential and value, on May 31, 1956, Proclamation No. 299 also known as Siruma White Clay Mineral Reservation (SWCMR) was been signed by the late president Ramon Magsaysay. The mineral reservation has a total area of 3,307 hectares covering the Barrios of Bani and San Vicente in the Municipality of Tinambac, Camarines Sur and the Barrios of Bagong Sirang, Bahao, Tongo-Bantigue, La Purisima, Malaconini, Mabuhay, Fundado, Nalayahan, and San Andres of Siruma, Camarines Sur.

A Mineral Reservation is an area set aside and established as such when the national interest so requires, such as when there is a need to preserve strategic raw materials critical to national development or certain minerals for scientific, cultural or ecological value.