MICC
meet today
Published October 23, 2017, 10:01 PM
By Madelaine B. Miraflor and Chino S. Leyco
Even if the inter-agency Mining
Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) is already set to release today (Tuesday)
the results of the study seeking to prove or counter the legality of open-pit
mine ban in the country, it may still take awhile before Environment Secretary
Roy Cimatu could actually decide whether he will lift it or not.
Cimatu, in an interview yesterday,
said the MICC may already decide today whether or not it will lift the ban on
open-pit mine, which was put in place seven months ago or just a few weeks
before the powerful Commission on Appointments rejected the appointment of
Regina Paz Lopez as the country’s environment secretary.
According to him, it will be the
technical working group (TWG) of the MICC, which he co-chairs with
Finance Secretary Carlos
Dominguez III, that will present today the particular study on the issue.
Ahead of the Mining Industry
Coordinating Council (MICC) meeting today, Dominguez said yesterday that
there is no law banning open-pit mines.
“I have to see what the
recommendation is from the TWG and we’ll certainly consider their ideas. You
know in the first place, people don’t know that open pit mining is not against
the law,” Dominguez told reporters in a recent interview.
But Dominguez pointed out that what
is really important is how the miners follow their operations with the
rehabilitation of the site. “People have to follow the law on the
rehabilitation, that is why the law requires certain amount of money to be set
aside for the rehabilitation,” Dominguez said. “I’m not saying [the ban] there
is no legal basis, but it is not prohibited.”
When asked about the chances that
Lopez’s order be reversed, Dominguez responded “we will see what the TWG has to
say.”
Earlier, Finance Undersecretary
Bayani H. Agabin said the ban on open-pit mine was up for review this week
after its proponents, led by Lopez, presented their case before TWG of the
MICC.
Agabin said the MICC will convene to
discuss whether the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ (DENR)
controversial order should be kept or not.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez
III, that will present today the study on this particular issue.
This was confirmed by Finance
Undersecretary Bayani Agabin in a separate interview.
But when asked if the result favors
the lifting of the said ban, Bayani only said he is yet to find out the
“inclination of the body” but he expects “a healthy discussion during the
meeting.”
Cimatu, on the other hand, said he
will “inhibit” from attending the meeting and implied that even if the result
is already out and say the TWG will recommend the ban to be lifted, the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will not instantly make
a decision on it.
“The decision is either a yes or no
and second is how to implement it. [Once we get the results from the MICC] we
will be making study especially on the conditions and provisions, because it
can’t be imposed just like that,” Cimatu told reporters on the sidelines of the
ongoing 12th Conference of Parties to the Convention on the Conservation of
Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS-COP12) in Pasay.
“The President directed me [to look
into open-pit mining oeprations in the country]. He’s very emphatic on the
effect of the open pit mining and the companies must talk to the communities to
find out and help them,” he added.
Agabin already said before that at
the end of the day, it will still be up to Cimatu whether to lift the ban or
not.
To recall, it was Cimatu himself who
has brought the issues surrounding the administrative order banning companies
to extract minerals through the open pit method to the MICC table.
This, even if he has the power to
abolish the order himself since it was imposed by his predecessor Lopez.
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