Apex leaves group of local mining firms

Apex Mining Co Inc. recently bolted the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP) which is the influential umbrella group of local miners.

Apex Mining president and chief executive officer Walter Brown, in a disclosure with the Philippine Stocks Exchange (PSE), expressed the firm’s “disappointment and frustration” to the group’s response to the call of President Rodrigo Duterte to the local mining industry to clean up its acts.

“I do not agree that we should blame the illegal small-scale miners when the mining industry is put to task for perceived destruction of the environment,” Brown said.

He stressed that the mining industry is currently subject to intense scrutiny, and the COMP needs to regulate its members who are not complying with the existing mining rules and regulations.

“If we don’t clean up our ranks, all the good will go down the same drain with the bad, when the industry is taxed to death, as the President has warned,” the executive noted.

In his State of the Nation Address this year, President Duterte has warned all mining operations and contractors to refrain from destructing watersheds, forests, and watersheds.

Meanwhile, Apex Mining is among the 13 mines which passed the mining audit during the term of former Department of Environment and Natural Resources secretary Gina Lopez.

COMP has not yet issue a statement after Apex Mining withdraws from the group.