The regional office of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau is working on the applications for the declaration of a Minahang Bayan in the Davao region, said MGB-11 officer-in-charge engineer Wilfredo Moncano.
“There are 15 applications now pending at the MGB central office and we also have 10 previously declared Minahang Bayan that we wanted recognized by the central office,” Moncano told a press conference at the Kape at Habi in Abreeza Mall on Wednesday.
He added that since the MGB central office has not yet recognized the previously declared Minahang Bayan, it would appear that their operations in the region are illegal.
A position paper has been submitted to the secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to recognize the 10 previously declared Minahang Bayan in the Davao region.
If they are recognized, the number of illegal mining activities in the area would be reduced, Moncano added.
“The DENR central office has not yet responded to the position paper,” he said.
The position paper was submitted by the Provincial Mining Regulatory Boards (PMRBs) of Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental.
The long process of applying for Minahang Bayan was also cited by Moncano as one of the reasons in the delay of the declaration.
He said the application for Minahang Bayan to be recognized and secure mining contracts must pass through a very long process that includes five major steps and 34 sub-steps.
These steps, he said, are stipulated in Executive Order 79 and the Department Administrative Order 2015-03 of the DENR.
In Compostela Valley, Moncano said, there are 1,800 tunnels presently operated by small-scale miners and around 1,100 processing plants.
Most of these tunnels and plants are in Pantukan town, he added.
Moncano added that the position paper also asked the DENR and the MGB to simplify the steps in applying for Minahang Bayan and in securing mining contracts.
He said the PMRBs’ call is also in line with President Rodrigo Duterte’s mandate to simplify and shorten the processes of securing business permits from the government.
“We oppose small-scale mining because they don’t have the capability to mitigate any environmental problems,” said engineer Alexis Baligod of the Mindanao Association of Mining Engineers (MAEM), who added that big mining corporations are also affected by the presence of small miners in the region.
Baligod, in the same press conference, said environment degradation by small-scale miners are often blamed on large mining corporations.
“We are not into irresponsible mining. The first issue here is that a big-scale mining corporation, before it starts and the mining feasibility studies are being evaluated by the concerned authorities, we are supposed to put in place all the necessary mitigating measures,” he added.
Mining corporations, he said, are also required to put in trust, though not yet into operation, several millions of pesos to mitigate environmental problems and for mine rehabilitation.
Baligod added that MAEM is now preparing presentations to show that small miners and not large companies are to blame for environmental degradation.