DOF wants annual mining council budget

The Department of Finance (DOF) wants to have an annual budget allocation for the Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) to undertake a comprehensive review of mining contracts nationwide.

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the Duterte administration would ask Congress to permanently earmark a budget beginning next year for the inter-agency council cochaired by heads of the DOF and Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

But as early as this year, Dominguez said the government has already allocated R50 million to begin the MICC’s comprehensive review of mining contracts of companies ordered shuttered or suspended by the DENR last month.

Dominguez said the initial budget for the MICC was sourced from the national government’s contingency fund.

“This MICC has never been funded so I think for the 2018 budget, we will propose that we will do that,” Dominguez said. “It’s been done [with other similar Councils] so we can do it.”

Dominguez said that it was only proper that the MICC be given a permanent allocation under the national budget given its task under Executive Order No. 79 of reviewing all 311 mining contracts in the country once every two years.

For this year, the MICC approved last Friday the guidelines on the conduct of an “objective, factfinding, science-based” review of mining operations nationwide, initially covering those ordered closed or suspended by the DENR.

The MICC also decided in its Friday meeting to complete the review to be conducted by five interdisciplinary technical review teams (TRTs) within three months, with primary focus on the technical, legal, social, environmental and economic aspects of the affected mining operations.

Dominguez said the review will be done “in accordance with existing guidelines and parameters set forth in the specific mining contracts concerned and other pertinent laws rules and regulations.”

He said the members of the TRT “shall be qualified, certified or licensed persons in their fields of expertise and experienced in mining operations who shall be independent and have no known conflict of interest.”

Each TRT will include a geologist, mining engineer or metallurgical engineer; lawyer; community relations officer; environmental management officer; and economic representatives of the local government unit hosting the mining operation.