Lopez tumult no effect on mining sector—CMP

The closure and suspension orders issued against mining operations by former Envi­ronment Secretary Gina Lo­pez had no impact on the lo­cal production of nickel ore, Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (CMP) Legal and Policy Vice President Ronald Recidoro said.

At the recent 2017 Nation­al Conference of the Philippine Extractive Industries Transpar­ency Initiative, Recidoro said the closure and suspension orders were not enforced due to a provision under Admin­istrative Order (AO) 22 or the Prescribing Rules and Regula­tions Governing Appeals to the Office of the President.

“The suspensions and closures did not actually push through because under AO 22, any appeal to the Office of the President automatically stays the enforcement of the decision. So the 23 (mining operations for closure) and five (for suspension), all of them appealed. The decision has stayed and they continue to operate as usual,” he said.

Lopez’s as head of the De­partment of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), initially suspended 10 mining operations—four in Zambales, and two each in provinces of Palawan, Eastern Samar, and Surigao.

“But if you look at these 10 operations, most of them were already suspended, way before Secretary Lopez came into office. So, you won’t be seeing any impact there,” Reci­doro said.

After the first suspension order to the 10 mines, the for­

mer DENR chief announced the closure of 23 mining op­erations and the suspension of another five.

By virtue of AO 22, the closure and suspension orders did not push through since all

companies appealed to Mala­cañang Palace.

“Had those closures and suspensions pushed through, they would have impacted 50 percent of our nickel produc­tion for the year,” Recidoro said.

On the cancellation of 75 mineral production-sharing agreements (MPSAs) in water­sheds nationwide, the Cham­ber of Mines official noted that these operations have not yet started.

“They are just agreements, so no production to be im­pacted there,” he added.

“Overall, I would say that the last 10 months, although it’s been very tumultuous to say the least, there is no real impact yet on production,” he said.

He however pointed out that the big impact would probably be on investor con­fidence.

“Investments rely on the stability of the policy. For so long as investors do not see that, they will be hesitant to invest in the Philippines. We’re hoping that moving forward, we will be sending the right signals from now on, that we are a reliable partner and we can be a stable area for high-risk investments like mining,” he stressed.

Strong governance not absolute ban

A strong governance frame­work for the extractive indus­tries, not an “arbitrary” ban on this sector, will let the country “get the best of both worlds,” which is creating wealth for the people from the coun­try’s natural resources and, at the same time, ensuring the sustainability of the environ­ment, Finance Secretary Car­los Dominguez III said.

Dominguez said the Duterte administration “will be firm but fair” in exercis­ing strong governance while practicing transparency in all its processes and abiding by global best practices in ensur­ing sustainable development.

“The solution is not to arbitrarily ban extractive in­dustries, whatever contractual obligations government has with investors,” said Domin­guez in his keynote speech at the national conference of the Philippine Extractive Indus­tries Transparency Initiative (PH-EITI) held at the Manila Hotel.

He said, “The solution is to improve governance so that we get the best of both worlds: ensuring the sustain­ability of our environment on one hand and creating wealth for our people from our nat­ural endowments on the oth­er.”

To ensure transparency, Dominguez said suspensions “on the basis of unseen au­dits” and “honest industries subjected to levies without le­gal basis” would “never again” happen on the Duterte watch.

“One could be envi­ronment-friendly and busi­ness-friendly at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive inclinations. Only the zealots think they are,” he added.

“We need to encourage and not suppress extractive industries. They are neces­sary to help our economy de­velop, to bring the revenues that government needs and to create opportunities for the communities that host these industries,” Dominguez said.

Dominguez, who co-chairs the Mining Indus­try Coordinating Council (MICC) with the Secretary of the Department of Environ­ment and Natural Resources (DENR), likewise expressed his support for the Philip­pines’ participation in EITI to set standards of hones­ty and openness, along with benchmarks of responsibility to communities hosting the extractive industries.

He lauded government agencies, civil society organi­zations and the local govern­ment units (LGUs) involved in the PH-EITI’s “good work” of encouraging all stakeholders to adopt global best practices in governing extractive industries.

“If we have full disclo­sure of what was taken and what was earned, then we can have a full accounting of what needs to be remediated and how much the commons de­serve,” Dominguez said.

He said “only full trans­parency can build an atmo­sphere of trust among stake­holders” and assure the public “that businesses are run with integrity and regulations en­forced with competence.”

“Otherwise, there can only be a cloud of uncer­tainty, suspiciousness and fear. With such an unhealthy cloud, there will be no social peace,” he said.

A former DENR secre­tary, Dominguez noted that good governance and dia­logue were not always the norm in the extractive in­dustries, as he recalled the time when poor governance resulted in massive deforesta­tion and left the country with only 11 percent of its forest cover, which then led to ca­lamities involving poorly reg­ulated mines.

“Businesses engaged in extractive industries were once vilified by environmen­tal zealots. Instead of dialogue and broad agreement on the standards of governance, there was recrimination,” he said.

Dominguez said “poor governance caused us to lose our forests without emancipating our people” which “should never happen again.”’

“Good governance, in contrast, should embolden us to attract investments in extractive industries, confi­dent that we will be able to assure sustainable forestry and mining,” Dominguez said.

“A strong governance framework will ensure that mining companies remedi­ate the mining sites. This is, after all, what government is all about: it enables the community to do things, to create wealth that benefits all and to draw from the en­vironment without dimin­ishing it,” he said.

He said a proper gover­nance framework will enable Filipinos to benefit from investments in extractive industries, which on their end, should always be trans­parent and vigilant against causing harm to the envi­ronment and the people.

Last year, Dominguez required treasurers of LGUs to include in their quarterly and annual financial reports to the DOF all environment and natural resources reve­nues and expenditures, par­ticularly the payments made by the mining and other ex­tractive industries to their respective LGUs.