The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines said Wednesday the industry does not need new laws but only their strict and fair enforcement.
“Our mining laws are globally recognized as among the best because these integrate stringent rules on the environment and caring for the local communities,” said CoMP president Benjamin Philip Romualduez in his speech during the 2016 Mining Philippines International Conference and Exhibition held in Marriott Hotel in Parañaque City.
“What is needed is strict and fair enforcement of a stable policy regime that promotes the long term and stewardship of our environment and natural resources,” he said.
Romualdez also said the strict enforcement of environmental regulations were already in the country’s laws.
Earlier, Environment Secretary Regina Lopez said the country’s mining law issued in 1995 was “grossly unfair” and called for a revision to include a ban on open pit mining.
Romualdez said the CoMP in the past years had been operating under some of the strictest laws.
“We have always operated under some of the strictest laws and we believe that if you cannot obey these laws, you should not be in the industry,” he said.
Romualdez noted that no new mining agreements were issued under the previous administration and that the industry’s fiscal and regulatory regime was under very close scrutiny from the executive, legislative and judicial departments.
“We lost our potential to raise GDP (gross domestic product) growth to 10 percent, enough to reach a sustainable growth level to uplift 25 percent of our poor population,” Romualdez said.
“If only the mining industry was allowed to flourish, the more than $30-billion mining projects and exploration activities already in the pipeline would have by now easily added 5 percent to the GDP and contributing 10 percent to the country’s exports. Direct and indirect employment would have reached over 20,000 jobs supporting hundreds of thousands of lives,” he said.
Romualdez said while the industry was willing to invest to improve the country’s economy, the “new spirit of optimism is being shattered by very disturbing DENR pronouncements that paint a very unstable policy outlook.”
“To break this wasteful impasse, we appeal to the President to immediately convene a meeting with the industry and the MICC (Mining Industry Coordinating Council) for constructive consultations on how to put a balance to the complex issues of mining so that policies moving forward will be based on science and hard facts and not on mere slogans of hard-line ideology,” he said.
“We will send our best experts to help the government unleash the huge mineral potential of the nation and allay unfounded fears that the environment will be neglected,” Romualdez said.
Romualdez clarified that the mining industry was not afraid of the mining audit.
“We welcome it. We welcome this purging of illegal and non-compliant mining operations. We have always operated under some of the strictest laws and we believe that if you cannot obey these laws, you should not be in this industry,” he said.