The interagency Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) said it will conduct the second round of mining audit from July to January next year as part of the continuing effort of the Duterte administration to promote responsible mining in the country.
The audit, which the MICC promises to be “objective, science-based and fact-finding,” will cover 17 mining operations across the country.
The same technical teams that conducted the first round of reviews last year covering a total of 26 mines will do the second mining audit.
“The MICC will complete the review and management teams in the second and third week of July. We will tap around 15 experts from the same technical teams that did the first audit,” Finance Undersecretary Bayani H. Agabin, who chaired n MICC meeting held recently at the Department of Finance main office in Manila, said in a news statement.
Agabin said the 15 experts will be grouped into three teams with five members for each panel and will employ senior and junior technical and research assistants to help them with the audit.
The review will cover the environmental, economic, social, legal and technical aspects of the mining operations, he added.
Earlier, the MICC deferred a recommendation on the lifting of the moratorium on the issuance of new mineral agreements.
Executive Order (EO) 79 imposed a moratorium on new mineral agreements “until a legislation rationalizing existing revenue sharing schemes and mechanisms shall have taken effect.”
The Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law, or Republic Act 10963, increased the excise tax on mineral products from 2 percent to 4 percent, even as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) sought clarification on whether the increase would be considered as having satisfied the condition of legislation rationalizing the existing revenue-sharing scheme.
However, the Department of Finance clarified that TRAIN only increased the excise taxes and did not cover the implementation of a new fiscal regime for mining. The new fiscal regime proposed by the DOF covers other taxes and fees, such as royalty, windfall, profit and incentives.
Given the clarification, the MICC resolved to defer a recommendation to lift the moratorium on new mineral agreements, stressing that a new revenue-sharing scheme and mechanisms for mining will be covered in the Package 2 plus of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP), which will have to be refiled in the incoming 18th Congress.
‘Questionable’
Sought for comment, anti-mining groups under the Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM) lauded the move, saying such mine audit has, in fact, been long overdue.
Jaybee Garganera, national coordinator of ATM, also questioned the outcome of the first review, which he pointed out has not been made public by the DENR and the MICC in the first place. “This leads us to question the results of the first round of the MICC review,” Garganera said.
Under the watch of then-DENR Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez, who initiated a mining audit in 2016 and 2017, a total of 26 large-scale operating mines were recommended for suspension or closure for failing environmental standards.
The DENR audit was based on a set of criteria that include environmental, social and biodiversity concerns, deviating from the usual technical and economic aspects of mining operations. The ATM and its member-organizations in mining-affected communities were part of the audit.
This prompted mining companies to appeal their case to the MICC, including some that directly filed their appeal in Malacañang.
The MICC, hence, conducted a review of the DENR recommendation and its own mining audit where it cleared most of the mining companies but declined to give out details as to the methods.
Such lack of transparency, Garganera said, puts into question the entire MICC audit process.
The lack of transparency and accountability of DENR is precisely the reason communities and local governments like in Nueva Vizcaya are barricading the operations of Oceana Gold Philippines Inc., Garganera said.
“So yes, MICC should proceed immediately with their second round of mine audit reviews and they should release the results and methodologies of the first round of review,” he said.
“How come that from an original order of closure and cancellation of mining contracts, the recommendation of DENR has been reduced to mere suspension of…operations?” Garganera asked.
According to Garganera, members of ATM have given the DENR a copy of its “people’s mine audit,” which, he said, gives the testimonies and evidence gathered by mining-affected communities across the country.
“The evidences clearly show that mining companies violated our environmental laws or failed to comply with their own contractual obligations. These are enough bases to have their mining contracts canceled,” he said.