Dissent hits mining industry ranks

JUST as the country’s miners breathed a sigh of relief with the replacement in May of a staunch environmentalist at the Environment department’s helm, their industry group was hit yesterday by the exit of a member who claimed some of them paid “mere lip service to responsible mining,” consequently putting all at risk of a fresh state crackdown.

Apex Mining Company, Inc. — one of the 13 miners that passed the audit conducted by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources under former secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez starting July last year — said in a press release yesterday that it “has resigned from the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines” (COMP).

Ms. Lopez — who was replaced in May by current Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu — in early February ordered 26 of the country’s 41 operating metal mines either shuttered or suspended, and followed that move weeks later with a similar crackdown on 75 other projects in pre-production stage.

Her orders are now under review by the interagency Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) and by the Office of the President.

Ms. Lopez had also ordered a ban on open-pit mining — a method that is widely used worldwide — a directive which Mr. Cimatu said earlier this week would stay pending a review.

The statement yesterday said Walter W. Brown, Apex Mining’s president and chief executive officer, “expressed his disappointment and frustration with COMP’s response to the President’s call for the mining industry to clean up its act.”

In his two State of the Nation Addresses (SONA) since he took over on June 30 last year, President Rodrigo R. Duterte had railed at environmental degradation in a number of mining sites, warning in his second SONA on July 24 that he wanted to ban the export of ore and to tax the industry more heavily than it is today after noting that such destruction has persisted.

Big miners in the country have argued that they have been observing international standards in mitigating the environmental impact of their operations and in rehabilitating their sites.

The blame for environmental degradation, rather, lies with small illegal miners, they have insisted.

“I do not agree that we should blame illegal small-scale miners when the mining industry is put to task for perceived destruction of the environment,” the press statement yesterday quoted Mr. Brown as saying.

“I would rather that the chamber regulate its own ranks and discipline its members who do not comply with existing mining rules and regulations, and those who pay lip service to responsible mining,” he added.

“Every organization has its own share of good members and bad members. But the mining industry is subject to intense scrutiny now,” he noted.

“If we do not clean up our ranks, all the good will go down the same drain with the bad, when the industry is taxed to death, as the President has warned.”

Apex Mining, which operates a gold-silver mine in Maco, Compostela Valley in eastern Mindanao, grew consolidated net income by more than fourfold to P322 million last year from 2015’s P71.4 million, as consolidated revenues increased by 45.8% to P3.5 billion from P2.4 billion while consolidated cost of production rose 35% to P2.7 billion from P2.0 billion.

Its shares ended yesterday relatively flat at P1.57 apiece from Wednesday’s P1.58, compared to an overall 0.15% fall of the mining and oil sectoral index under which Apex Mining is listed.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re seeing a member resign. We hope it could have been avoided,” Ronald S. Recidoro, COMP’s Legal and Policy vice-president, said in a telephone interview yesterday when sought for comment.

Members of the chamber yesterday met with Mr. Duterte for about an hour in Malacañang, where — Mr. Recidoro recalled — the chief executive merely reminded them of the need to “take care of the environment and the people.”

The country’s mining industry has been reeling from unfriendly policies since former president Benigno S. C. Aquino III issued Executive Order No. 79 in July 2012 which formed the MICC, emphasized the need for more responsible mining and stopped the approval of new projects pending the enactment of a fresh revenue-sharing scheme that will give the government a bigger slice of industry earnings. A mining revenue bill was filed shortly before Mr. Aquino and the 16^th Congress ended their terms, hence, was left in limbo. — Janina C. Lim