House to ban open-pit mining — Arroyo

The House of Representatives will approve a bill banning open-pit mining, which has been blamed for flooding and landslides that have resulted in innumerable deaths.

“We will have a bill expressly prohibiting open-pit mining. That is a priority of President Duterte,” Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said yesterday in the course of a Ways and Means Committee hearing on proposed higher taxes and royalties from the mining industry.

She attended the hearing to push for a clear ban on destructive mining practices.

Arroyo told her colleagues and stakeholders that Gloria Tan-Climaco, who had served in her administration when she was president and is now a mining industry representative, has informed her that coming up with a proposed new mining law is not a priority of Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Carlos Dominguez.

“Now, since you’re all here, since it is not his (Dominguez’s) priority… but it is the President’s priority as he said in the SONA (State of the Nation Address last July 23), therefore, we will come up with a mining bill,” Arroyo said. She said she gave Dominguez time to submit his own proposals to be incorporated in the House version of the

new mining legislation.

“I will ask the industry, talk to the DOF, otherwise we make our own… Anyway it’s not your (DOF’s) priority, it’s only the President’s priority,” she stressed.

Dominguez heads the administration’s mining industry coordinating council, which has reversed most of the decisions of former DENR secretary Gina Lopez closing mining companies found engaged in destructive practices and violating their mineral-sharing agreements with the government.

Arroyo said the House would adopt the definition of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) of open-pit mining as contained in Department Administrative Order (DAO) 2018-19 issued by Secretary Roy Cimatu last Aug. 17.

“Once and for all, we will define what is open-pit mining. I’m sure the industry is aware of DAO 2018-19…that you are very happy with this,” she said.

She noted that Cimatu was “very diplomatic” in his issuance as he “didn’t use the word ‘open-pit mining’.”

“Well, I am more straight to the point. So I would like to incorporate a second portion of our draft bill to define ‘openpit mining’ as any violation of DAO 2018-19,” she said.

She said miners would be asked to comply with Cimatu issuance within a certain period, during which they would pay an excise tax.