Miners on Tuesday said it now came to the point that the industry is “fighting for its life” under the watch of Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez.
The mining industry’s big players had given up on Lopez’s alleged “bias” against mining, and is now appealing to President Duterte and the Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) “to save the industry”.
Art Disini, chairman of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP), said they have written a letter sent to the members of MICC, which is cochaired by Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, hoping to reverse what they described as “the arbitrary closure and suspension order affecting 28 of the 41 operating mines in the country”.
According to Disini, COMP will also ask the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to reveal the mining-audit result, invoking the Freedom of Information executive order signed by Duterte. COMP also reminded Lopez that, as a Cabinet official, she is obliged to adhere to the Duterte administration’s policy of transparency in governance.
“It will be absurd for us [COMP] to have to go to the court to ask for records that are supposed to be provided to us by the government, in the first place,” said Ronald Recidoro, vice president for policy and legal of COMP.
“We are not saying that that’s what we are going to do, but that is a legal remedy we can avail [ourselves] of.”
He added it is important for mining companies to know the basis of the closure or suspension order for them to correct whatever violations they have committed.
Besides, Recidoro said, the DENR’s Administrative Order 2 Series of 2016, mandates transparency in governance.
According to Carlo Pimentel, president of the Philippine Nickel Industry Association, at this juncture, the mining industry is fighting not only for its life, but for the lives of its stakeholders, as well.
“What we would like is for the government to follow due process,” he said.
“Many mining companies received show-cause orders, even though, sometimes, the orders are opposed or against the audit findings and recommendation,” he said.
COMP earlier questioned the basis of Lopez’s actions and appealed to Dominguez to convene MICC to look into Lopez’s “actuations”.
According to Disini, Dominguez had asked COMP to “enlighten” MICC over the potential economic impact of the closure and suspension orders handed down by Lopez on February 2. The order effectively closed 23 operating mines and suspended the operation of five other mines. The impact to nickel production alone would cause a 50-percent reduction in the country’s annual output.
The Philippines is the single major exporter of nickel to China for nickel-raw materials for various steel products, such as stainless steel.
Horacio Ramos, a former director of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, said the closure order should not be taken lightly. “The industry is now fighting for its life,” Ramos said, who now works as a consultant to a mining company, adding that Lopez apparently failed to observe due process of law in closing and suspending mining operations.
“There should be an investigation, a report, and the company is allowed to contest the findings. Whatever is the decision, it must be based on science, rather than conjuncture or suspicion of wrongdoing,” he said.
3 comments
She refuses to show the audit report, that already says a lot about her biases. She is ready to kill an industry with people millions of people depending on them just because of her principles.
Newsflash, all these facts are so far removed from this heiress reality might as she try, not that she’s trying anyway. She could never grasp all these people not being able to feed themselves and their families, getting displaced, and the economy suffering, because well, no matter what happens these things wont happen to her.
Kung walang due process yung EJK, then wala rin due process yung mining industry!!!