ASSISTANT Finance Secretary Paola Alvarez said Thursday the inter-agency Mining Industry Coordinating Council was seeking a P50-million budget so it could hire independent experts to reassess the operations of the 311 mining firms as ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte.
The 311 include the 28 mines shuttered or suspended by the Environment department.
Alvarez made the statement even as Manila Mining Corp. urged ABS-CBN and ANC to clarify what it said was a “misleading news report” about the company.
In a disclosure to the stock exchange, Manila Mining said ABS-CBN and ANC recently released a story titled “DENR gives Manila Mining 2 months to neutralize the open pit’s acidity level.”
“The open pit referred to was the Ntina pit. The report is misleading because it is incomplete and suggests, whether wittingly or unwittingly, that Manila Mining Corporation had failed to meet the environmental standards set by law and regulations for observance by mining companies,” the company said.
“In the case of MMC, it is not even in operation presently and is only on care and maintenance status while awaiting the DENR approval of its ECC application.”
Alvarez said the MICC had “subsequently held two meetings that resulted in the unanimous adoption of MICC Resolution 6 providing for a multi-stakeholder review of all mining operations.
The council also agreed to seek a P50-million allocation from the Budget department to finance the review over a three-month period.
“In fact, DENR Secretary Regina Lopez was present at the first MICC meeting held on Feb. 9 in which she signed with her Council co-chairperson, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, this MICC resolution that her personal lawyer, Christian Monsod, had helped draft in that same gathering,” Alvarez said.
“Hence, we at the DOF are rather perplexed as to why the good secretary would seemingly want to throw a monkey wrench into the MICC-approved review of all mining operations by opposing the budgetary support when, first, such a reassessment was ordered by President Duterte no less during the Cabinet meeting last Feb. 7, and, second, she herself formally approved such an MICC review by signing MICC Resolution No. 6 during the Council’s meeting on Feb. 9.”
With regard to the P50-million budgetary support, “Lopez had likewise green-lighted this request to the DBM during the follow-up MICC meeting last Feb. 20 as the Council would need to hire a sufficient number of private experts from different fields to review the technical, legal, social, environmental and economic aspects of all 311 mining contracts in the country.”
As for Lopez’s plan to appeal to Finance Undersecretary Bayani Agabin to inhibit from the MICC process in light of his past ties to mining companies, Alvarez said “Secretary Lopez is free to make such an appeal in the same manner that certain groups are free to oppose her confirmation by the Commission on Appointments on a conflict-of-interest issue and other grounds.”
However, she added that Agabin had already pointed out that his professional engagement with the Philippine Associated Smelting & Refining Corp. ended 15 years ago and with Rapu Rapu Minerals Inc. 10 years ago.
“Perhaps, it is the DENR secretary who needs to recuse herself from the MICC process, given that she has publicly stated that she would stick to the findings of the DENR’s audit report regardless of the outcome of the MICC review ordered by the President,” Alvarez said.
She said the recruitment of the experts who would conduct the review was a multi-agency process of which the DoF was a part of.
“The DoF cannot be excluded from this process as it does not of itself face any conflict of interest without violating its mandate under EO 79,” Alvarez said.