Mining contributes to government coffers

COMP says

After President Rodrigo Duterte said the country could survive without mining industry, Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP) hit back, saying that with the current set-up, the government still get more of mining profits.

Then it said the sector is only considering Duterte's statement as a challenge to step up its efforts and practices.

On Monday, Duterte said he can forgo the annual R40 billion in government revenue from the mining industry.

"The prevailing assumption that government only gets 18 percent from mining operations is completely false and baseless," COMP responded, also referring to the earlier statement made by Department of Environment Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Gina Lopez.

COMP then clarified that the Foreign Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) provides for a 50-50 percent sharing formula with government and when there are windfall profits, government still gets an additional share of 60 percent when the windfall is over 50 percent.

In the Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA), government, on the other hand, gets 45 percent share, depending on prices of commodities. But when prices are low, government still gets more than the companies.

"Us in the Chamber are covered by a strict edict to safeguard our people, environment and country’s interests and we will continue to abide by the law as the President has stressed to us in the industry and support his effort to weed out the irresponsible miners who conduct their business without regard for the law," COMP said.

On Monday, Duterte warned mining companies to strictly follow tighter environmental rules or shut down.

“We will survive as a nation without you. Either you follow strictly government standards or you close down," the President said.

“You try to castigate Gina Lopez for being strict, and yet you destroy the land, destroy the soil, and then you get rich,” he added.

According to COMP, the sector continues to take the President's statement as a challenge to step up its efforts and practices in adhering to the tenets of responsible mining.

The DENR has so far suspended the operations of seven domestic nickel mines for failure to comply with environmental regulations.

The Philippines is currently the biggest supplier of nickel ore to the top consumer China, while the mining sector, overall, contributes less than one percent to the Philippine economy.

A data from Mines and Geosciences Bureau, bulk of country's minerals from gold to copper and nickel has remained untapped and that of 9 million hectares identified as having high mineral reserves, only three percent is being explored.