Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu on Wednesday vowed to scrutinize pending applications for new mining projects to ensure that these would not cause any adverse effects to the environment.
“There is no automatic approval even if these mining applicants submit all the requirements,” Cimatu said in a news statement following President Duterte’s issuance of Executive Order (EO) 130 that lifted the ban on new mining agreements in the country.
EO 130, signed by President Duterte last April 14, amended Section 4 on the Grant of Mineral Agreements Pending New Legislation of EO 79 issued by former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III in 2012.
The DENR chief vowed that pending applications would only be approved by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) “only after a thorough review and validation of the Final Exploration Report and Mining Feasibility Studies.”
As a new policy, Cimatu said, only delineated mineral resources and reserves that are plentiful to last at least a 10-year mine life or commercial extraction life for metallic minerals and seven years for non-metallic, will be considered.
The Mining Feasibility Study, he said, should also show that the cost to develop the mine can pay for all the expenses related to the mining operation, including operating costs, administration overhead, and milling cost if there is a processing plant, environmental cost, social development cost, and safety and health cost.
Only financially capable companies, or companies that are able to pay national and local taxes, royalties, local government fees, other national government fees, and interest and charges on loans, would be allowed to operate.
If the feasibility studies “show less than ideal returns from the operation,” Cimatu said the application would likely be turned down.
“It is also possible that new requirements will come up based on the newly issued order. The MGB-DENR-Department of Finance Working Group is set to convene to draft the Implementing Rules and Regulations of EO 130,” he said.
Moreover, applicants should prove that the benefits of the mining operation, which is of national interest, would far outweigh the risks from adverse environmental effects.
Cimatu said the DENR has already put in place additional environmental measures to ensure a balance in the care for the environment and the economic and social concerns of the mining industry. In 2018, Cimatu issued Administrative Order 2018-19 to provide new environmental policies that will ensure sustainable environmental conditions in every stage of the mining operation and minimize the “disturbed” area of a mining project at any given time.
Under the Duterte administration, environmental measures have been put in place, requiring mining companies to implement progressive rehabilitation, and limiting the areas to be disturbed at any given time.
Mining companies are also required to establish a progressive rehabilitation fund with a minimum amount of P5 million, as well as pay the mine waste and tailings fee based on the amount of tonnage of mine wastes and tailings which the company generates every semester.
These fees will be for the payment for damages caused by a leak of tailings pond or mine waste to adjoining lands.
The mining companies also have to deposit the initial fund, an average of 8 percent, of the cost of the Final Mine Rehabilitation and Decommissioning Plan even before the mines can start commercial operation.
The MGB has so far issued a total of 309 mineral production sharing agreements (MPSAs) all over the country. Of the total, 51 MPSAs are in Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, and Dinagat Islands in Caraga.
Forty MPSAs are in Zambales (Central Luzon), 36 in Calabarzon, 32 in Central Visayas, 26 in Bicol region, and 19 in Samar and Leyte in Eastern Visayas.
Eighteen MPSAs were also issued in Davao Region, mostly inside and surrounding the Diwalwal Mineral Reservation. The rest of the MPSAs are spread to other regions.
There are only 50 operating large-scale metallic mines in the Philippines as of December 1, 2020, according to a document posted at the MGB’s website entitled Mining Industry Statistic.