FINANCE Secretary Carlos Dominguez on Tuesday reminded Environment Secretary Regina Lopez to conduct herself as a department secretary and not as a crusader.
“You know, being a secretary is not being a crusader. Being secretary is balancing the needs of different sectors of society…. Some groups win and some groups lose. You just make sure your decisions…are good for the majority,” Dominguez told Lopez, referring to her as “secretary-designate” because she has not yet been confirmed.
Dominguez said Lopez needed to ensure that due process is followed if she proceeds with her decision to shut down or suspend 28 mining companies and to cancel 75 mineral production sharing agreements.
Lopez should consider all stakeholders and not only her personal advocacies in exercising her responsibilities as Environment secretary, he added.
“You have to have an approach that is very balanced. That is very deliberate, that is very rational, that is science-based,” he said.
Lopez’s anti-mining stance has prompted the mining industry to oppose her confirmation as Environment secretary before the Commission on Appointments.
Lopez has ruffled feathers in Congress by saying she heard that members of the commission received P50 million each to block her confirmation—a claim she later retracted.
On Friday, Dominguez, along with Lopez, will reconvene the technical teams under the Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) to review of the closure and suspension orders issued by Lopez.
At a press briefing in the Palace, Dominguez said he and Lopez had signed a resolution agreeing to setting up a technical working group to review all her issuances, to make sure they are in line with due process.
The review process would take three months, after which the findings would be sent to President Rodrigo Duterte for a final decision, Dominguez said.
Each team will cover five aspects of a mining operation—technical, legal, social, environmental and economic and how the operation affects agricultural reform areas.
“They will present the plan on what they will do, and also the budget, because they will have to get professors from state colleges and universities and private universities, experts from different fields, and they have to travel. So, there is some money to be spent. So we have to make sure we have a budget for that,” he said.
“There are at least 75 contracts to be reviewed and some of the contracts are very thick,” Dominguez said.
“We will take a deliberate approach… We are not rushing it. It has to be very deliberate so we’re sure it is the correct process,” he added.
Dominguez also said that if Lopez proceeds with her closure orders, 17 cities and municpalities in 10 provinces would lose an estimated P821.13 million in forgone revenues yearly.
Dominguez denied talk of a rift between him and Lopez, and said they were on the same team.
“I want to make sure that when she closes the mine, it stays closed. Because if due process is not followed, two possible consequences will happen: the mine will go to court and the court will give them relief and they will open again. And, they will probably file for damages against the government for closing them illegally,” Dominguez said.
“So I want to avoid those and I want to make sure that Secretary Lopez—Secretary-designate Lopez is on firm ground when she does this,” he added.
Lopez on Tuesday asked her critics to play fair and spare her family from controversies.
Lopez said her confirmation hearing, which was supposed to be Wednesday, was postponed because of reorganization in the Senate.
The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines on Tuesday thanked the MICC for reviewing Lopez’s closure and suspension orders, saying these would hurt revenue collections for the government and jeopardize the President’s 10-point socio-economic program.
“The industry helps in enticing foreign direct investments, infrastructure development in the hinterlands that supports farmers in terms of farm to market roads and other basic services; strengthening of basic education through schools and investment in human capital development and the promotion of science and technology,” the group said in a statement.