President Duterte on Tuesday night declared he will continue to observe the ban on open-pit mining issued by former Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez, amid calls from the country’s biggest mining body for its lifting.
In a chance interview, the President said he has thumbed down the recommendation of the Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) to revoke Lopez’s Administrative Order 2017-10. The order prohibits the use of open-pit method of mining for the extraction of copper, gold, silver and complex ores.
Sought for comment on Duterte’s position, Lopez on Wednesday said she is “totally elated” over the President’s decision.
“[I am] totally elated. It means he [Duterte] has his own mind. Even if a government body recommend[ation is apparently] influenced by business interests, his heart remains for the greater majority who will be adversely affected by these decisions,” Lopez said.
Asked if he has plans to restore open-pit mining in the future, the President said: “Ayaw ko, because it is destroying the soil, the environment. At walang corrective measures kaagad [I will not, because open-pit mining is destroying the soil, the environment. And it has no immediate corrective measures].”
Duterte added he would have lifted the ban if there was an effort on the part of mining companies to preserve the environment, but he said there was none.
The President also said there was no need for the MICC to present to him its report, as he will carry on with the ban no matter what.
“[Even without the study,] you go to places where there’s an open-pit mining, and you can see the destruction of the soil, the environment,” Duterte said. This, for him, is reason enough to maintain Lopez’s directive against open-pit mining.
The MICC in October voted in favor of lifting the ban, and Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu said he will issue an administrative order restoring open-pit mining. “A majority of the members of the interagency MICC decided…to recommend the lifting of the ban on open-pit mining provided that laws and regulations governing this method of minerals extraction are strictly enforced by [the] DENR [Department of Environment and Natural Resources],” Cimatu said.
However, it appears Cimatu was unable to convince his principal with the MICC’s recommendation, as the President remains firm with his strong opposition on open-pit mining.
Lopez’s order concluded that “open pits have ended up as perpetual liabilities, causing adverse impacts to the environment, particularly due to the generation of acidic and/or heavy metal-laden water, erosion of mine-waste dumps and/or vulnerability of tailings dams to geological hazards.”
The order added most of the mining disasters in the country were caused by tailings spills from open-pit mining. Even as Lopez was rejected by the powerful Commission of Appointments in May, the government has continued implementing her directive against open-pit mining, banking on Duterte’s open declaration of his anti-mining stance.
For Rene E. Ofreneo, labor and industrial relations professor at the University of the Philippines, the Chief Executive’s strong position against open-pit mining will force miners to adjust. “The industry has to adjust, go underground and [make] use [of] more advanced technologies,” Ofreneo told the BusinessMirror.
Ofreneo also said it just right for the President to carry on with the ban on open-pit mining, as the method is “really destructive.”