Provinces, cities, municipalities, and barangays whose natural resources such as mineral deposits and energy supplies are being harnessed commercially stand to receive a combined P10.1 billion in additional development funding from the national government next year.
“The P10.1 billion covers the 40 percent share of local government units in the national treasury’s gross earnings from mining taxes, royalties from mineral reservations, forestry charges and revenues from renewable power assets,” Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel said on Sunday.
“The sharing is in accordance with the Local Government Code of 1991 and the Renewable Energy Law of 2008,” he added.
The P10.1 billion is 80 percent higher than the P5.6 billion share of LGUs this year and is provided for in the 2023 National Expenditure Program, the lawmaker said.
Pimentel credited the huge increase in the national treasury’s income from the utilization of natural resources to elevated global metal prices and the doubling of the excise tax rate on minerals, mineral products, and quarry resources — from two percent to four percent – under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law.
To boost government income, spur jobs creation, and hasten the country’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, then-President Rodrigo Duterte issued in April 2021 an executive order that lifted the nine-year freeze on the grant of new mining permits.
In December 2021, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources also issued an administrative order that removed the four-year ban on open pit-mining for copper, gold, silver, and complex ores.
Under the law, the LGU share from resource commercialization is distributed as follows: 20 percent to the host province; 45 percent to the host component city or the host municipality; and 35 percent to the host barangay.
