The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines said Monday it will form an oversight committee that will carry out investigations on mining incidents involving the group’s members.
CoMP said the decision to create an oversight committee was made after the group’s recent re-organization. This is part of the chamber’s two initiatives which aim to improve the mining industry in the country.
“Following the re-organization of the chamber, there are two initiatives in particular that we are looking at,” said newly elected CoMP chairman Gerard Brimo.
Brimo said the committee would carry out investigations as directed by the board of trustees.
“We are creating an oversight committee under the board of trustees of the chamber and over time no doubt that the functions of this committee will evolve. But at the outset, what it is tasked to do is to carry out investigations as directed by the board of trustees and in so doing, to get a third-party experts to carry out the investigation,” Brimo said.
“If there’s an investigation for any of us that is serious enough for the BOT [board of trustees] to feel that its should be investigated, that is where the BOT will step in. The third-party investigators will conduct investigation and will also dialog with the DENR [Department of Environment and Natural Resources], MGB [Mines and Geosciences Bureau] for their findings. We are heading now towards self-policing and there is a clamor from the members of the sector to move into that and this is a step towards it,” said Brimo.
Brimo said the chamber planned to adopt a mining approach similar to the one developed by the Mining Association of Canada.
The approach is a set of tools which aims to ensure that key mining risks are managed responsibly.
“It’s a program, a set of protocols towards sustainable mining. In Canada, which is a very large mining country, if you want to be a member of a mining association, you need to subscribe to this program. It requires mining companies to annually assess their mining operations in performance to six key areas which include tailings management, Indigenous People and community outreach, safety and health, biodiversity conservation, crisis management and so forth,” said Brimo.
“We have taken at heart our President’s call during our recent meeting with him in Malacañang, to do things responsibly and to do mine rehabilitation,” said Brimo.
Brimo, currently the president and chief executive of Nickel Asia Corp., will replace former CoMP chairman Artemio Disini.
Jose Leviste Jr. and Gilberto Teodoro, Jr. were elected as co-vice chairmen, Ronald Recidoro as executive director and Nelia Halcon as executive vice president.
“The position of president will remain vacant. We want to possibly get someone not necessarily connected with a member company. We want someone who has a technical background. We haven’t identified someone yet,” said Brimo.