Philippine
Daily Inquirer / 12:10 AM November 22, 2016
BAGUIO CITY—Mine
industry leaders discussed a proposal for a new mining code that would create a
Department of Mines and enforce a provision stipulating that all mineral lands,
including those covered by ancestral domains, are inalienable and owned by the
state.
The proposal came on
the heels of a perceived threat from the anti-mine stance of a Cabinet official
that was expressed in several papers presented at this year’s national mine
safety and environment conference held here last week.
Mining executives
interacted with mine engineer Graciano Calanog Jr., who proposed the revival of
an industry-backed mine code “to ensure that government policy on mining and
the environment is properly balanced and not tilted in favor of the
environment.”
Many
measures have been sponsored in Congress to replace Republic Act No. 7942 or
the Philippine Mining Act of 1995.
Calanog said the
industry is seeking a lawmaker to sponsor the draft mining code, which would
make a mine department the sole authority in regulating all mining activities
in the country.
By creating a single
mine regulator, Calanog said it would resolve the conflict created by laws that
allow the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Mines and
Geosciences Bureau (MGB) and local governments to issue mining permits.
The proposal also seeks
to require the new agency to be run by “officials with mining credentials,” he
said. “These days, anybody can be appointed director [of the MGB],” he added.
The proposed code may
become controversial, however, because it would no longer honor the ancestral
domain titles issued to indigenous peoples if their lands are classified as
mineral lands.
The constitutionality
of Republic Act No. 8371 (Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997) was questioned
in the Supreme Court, owing to its ancestral land provisions that supposedly
deprive the state of its ownership over minerals and other natural resources.
The petition, however,
was dismissed in 2000.
The proposed code needs
to assert “that mineral lands are inalienably and owned by the state and not by
the indigenous peoples nor by local governments,” Calanog said.
Former Science
Undersecretary Graciano Yumul said the mining industry should exert more effort
“in giving facts and details about the industry to disabuse the public about
the imagined perils of mining.”
“We hear the secretary
of environment saying climate is changing and we are in a geohazardous area so
we should limit mining if not totally eradicate mining. That is a wrong
notion,” said Yumul, now executive vice president for geology, exploration and
operations and executive director of Apex Mining Corp.
“We are dealing with
poor mining communities, mining makes people poor and we know that is wrong,”
he added.
In his keynote address
at the symposium, Eulalio Austin, president and chief executive officer of
Philex Mining Corp., said the idea of responsible mining “might not be grasped
or understood by the general public.” “We go to town proclaiming ourselves as
responsible miners, and yet its meaning is lost to the public we wish to affirm
or convert,” he said.
“The Philippines is
known to be a country with world class gold deposits. But it does not mean
anything because unless these resources are mined, it would not contribute to
the wealth of the country. We should be able to communicate that the mining industry
can also help generate wealth for this country,” he said.
“The legacy of the
mining industry rest on the leaders of the industry now. We have to
communicate, relate, convey… Unless we communicate our message, this industry
may not survive,” Austin said. —VINCENT
CABREZA
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