PHILEX PARADES FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ CAUSE

TUBA, Benguet - Staying true to its commitment of support and respect for the culture of ethnic tribes, Philex Mining Corp. joined Monday, Oct. 30, a multisectoral parade and formal ceremonies held in Baguio City in celebration of the Indigenous Peoples’ Month and the 20th Anniversary of IPRA, or IPs’ Rights Act, where Cordilleran soldiers who had fallen while fighting terrorists in Marawi were also honored.

“We have always shown respect for the way of life of the IPs, especially those in areas where we operate and do other mining-related activities,” Eduardo Aratas, manager of Legal Division at Philex Mining’s Padcal mine, in the Benguet towns of Tuba and Itogon, said.

Having joined the parade, which started from the Igorot Park and snaked through the main thoroughfare of Session Road, as well as attended the formal ceremonies afterward at the PFVR Gym Sports Complex, on Military Cutoff Road, Aratas highlighted Philex Mining’s religious payment of local and national taxes and its dogged implementation of the various projects on social development and environmental protection.

Between 2011 and 2015 alone, he stressed, Philex Mining had paid P10.12 billion toward the government coffers in the form of regular and miningrelated taxes. Also, the company’s gold-and-copper operations in Padcal contributed 100 percent of the required regular taxes amounting to P6.6 billion and another P3.5 billion in min- ing-related taxes since 2011.

Politicians from the six provinces (Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Apayao, Kalinga, and Mt. Province) and two cities (Baguio and Tabuk) of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) took turns extolling the IPs and their lawful right to their ancestral domains embodied in the Constitution and the IPRA. Created in 1987 by virtue of a peace accord, CAR is home to many ethnic tribes known collectively as “Igorot.”

Sr. Insp. Jonalyn Malnat, spokesperson of the Special Action Forces (SAF) of the Philippine National Police (PNP), was in attendance to receive the plaques given by the NCIP, or National Commission on IPs, in commendation of the heroism of the eight Cordillerans-three SAF members and fiver from the Armed Forces of the Philip- pines-who had perished in the battle between government forces and terrorists in Lanao del Sur’s capital and only city, Marawi.

Padcal mine’s host municipalities of Tuba and Itogon have always acknowledged Philex Mining’s fulfillment of its responsibilities, announcing, for instance, its payments of local business taxes amounting to P15.3 million for this year. In compliance with the towns’ respective revenue codes, Tuba was paid almost P8 million, or 44 percent of 1 percent of Philex Mining’s gross receipts for 2016, while Itogon got P7.4 million (41.25 percent).

“These taxes have been put into good use by funding a number of social-development projects, which trickled down to all the villages, including the remote ones populated by the IPs,” said Aratas, who also stressed that Philex Mining pays its royalties for the IPs through the NCIP, which is tasked to protect the rights of ethnic tribes.

Philex Mining also said that P39 billion or 69 percent of its P56-billion gross revenue over the five-year period of 2011 - 2015 had been shared with its stakeholders while 18 percent went to government, and 13 percent or P7.3 billion made up its net income.

“To measure the share that Philex Mining, or the whole mining industry, is putting into the country’s economy, one should not look only at the sector’s direct contributions toward the GDP, but also to the hundreds of millions’ worth of projects that a miner has given to its host municipalities,” Aratas said.