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DAVAO
CITY—Various government agencies and a Mindanao business
group would look anew into the causes of a sluggard
industry that only a few years back was harped as the
country’s economic savior.
A
two-day forum here in August would try to unlock the
grid that slowed down the entry of foreign investors, or
rev up the operations of known rich deposits and plow
the dollars to the economy.
“We
would like to know from the stakeholders and all those
involved in the mining industry, why, despite the new
mining law and the revitalizing of the mineral industry,
mining has not taken off and doing its share as
expected,” said Director Edilberto Arreza of the Davao
regional office of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB).
The
National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said
the industry was to contribute an average of 5,000 jobs
yearly on the period 2005-2010 and to deliver $1.6
billion worth of investments for the entire six-year
span.
But
Bonifacio Uy, Neda assistant regional director, said
that the investments, though substantial at least in the
Davao region, fell short of expections. He agreed with
the observations of Arreza and the Regional Director
Ricardo Calderon of the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources (Denr) that the industry did not
perform as much.
Besides, Uy said, the Neda could not match the target
with the actual investments and output during the same
period, saying the policy of secrecy of some government
agencies, such as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP),
has limited the agency’s access to important baseline
data.
“We
could only rely on the data provided by the MGB,” he
told a press conference at the Café Rysus of the SM City
here Monday.
Arreza
said the Davao region—composed of the three Davao
provinces and Compostela Valley, and the cities of
Davao, Samal, Panabo and Tagum—has 34 major projects, of
which only two were being actively mined by Holcim of
France, and Apex Mining Corp. in Maco, Compostela
Valley.
Only
four other projects were in their exploration stage
—North Davao Mining Corp. in Maco, Diwalwal Direct State
Development in Mount Diwata, Monkayo in Compostela
Valley, KingKing Copper Project in Pantukan, Compostela
Valley, and Pujada Bay Nickel Project in Mati, Davao
Oriental.
“Total
cost of investments total P1.7 billion,” he said.
“It’s
a very slow development in the industry in the region,”
he said. From the mineral program in the region, Arreza
added that “we would have expected all the mining
prospects to be operational by 2010, but as of 2008,
these are not still moving.”
Calderon said the regional forum may likely pass a
resolution urging the national government to enforce a
“use it or lose it policy,” to compel those awarded with
the mining rights to start their operations.
“There
are a lot of mining claims existing in the country, but
many of them are holding on to their rights while
shopping for other areas, and without developing these
areas,” he said. “We want to enforce this policy so that
mining can move.”
At
least one project here has pitted an Australian-based
mining company with its Filipino counterpart of a
conglomerate of seven Filipino-owned mining companies
over the indignation of the latter to the further moving
away by several more years of the operation of the
mining concession in eastern Mindanao.
The
Filipino conglomerate has rescinded their joint-venture
agreement last year and was slated to start follow-up
exploratory drilling operations in the next seven
months.
Arreza
said that the other issues that must be addressed by the
industry was the issuance of permits, “where the
practice of issuing offices, instead of decentralizing
operations, have even centralized them.”
Ednar
Dayanghirang, executive director of the Mindanao
Business Council (MinBC), said Arreza’s view would
likely be a major point to be raised in the two-day
forum, which was not yet fixed. “We would like to ask
the national government to return the powers of the
regions to approve mining licenses,” he said.
A law
has already allowed the regional directors of the DENR
to approve the mining applications, but regional
government and industry leaders disclosed that the
approval remained in the hands of the environment
secretary.
Undersecretary Virgilio Leyretana, chairman of the
government’s socioeconomic planning unit in Mindanao,
the Mindanao Economic Development Council (Medco), said
other issues to tackle would be the “equitable share of
the nation’s wealth” between the national government and
the local governments.
“So
far, this is not clear. The advocacy should be to
determine where to place it: in the Constitution or the
Local Government Code,” he said.
The
other crucial issues to be addressed in the forum,
Leyretana added, “is to answer the question on what
happens to Mindanao after mining.” He said “this should
be clarified amid the challenge of climate change,
energy and food crisis, as well as the high incidence of
poverty and a fragile peace-and-order situation in
Mindanao.”
The
still-undated forum in August would be jointly sponsored
by the Medco, Neda, DENR, MGB and the MinBC and would
carry the theme “Sustainable Regional Development
through a Strengthened Mining Industry.”
It
would try, among others, “to identify the gaps in the
implementation of the National Mineral Action Plan and
to identify regionally acceptable criteria in
responsible mining.” |
