MICC convened on PRRD’s order – DOF
The Department of Finance (DOF) clarified that inter-agency Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) was ordered to convene by President Rodrigo R. Duterte (PRRD) and not aimed to encroach on the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ (DENR) authority.
In a statement, Finance Undersecretary Bayani H. Agabin said that the President himself ordered the MICC to convene and reassess the audit done by the DENR that led to either the closure or suspension of operations of 28 mining sites across the country.
Agabin said the MICC is mandated under Section 10 of Executive Order (EO) No. 79 to review all mining-related rules and regulations, issuances and agreements.
"The MICC is not a creation of any Department,” Agabin said.
“EO 79 was issued by thenPresident Aquino in 2012 to institutionalize and implement reforms in the Philippine mining sector and to provide policies and guidelines to ensure environmental protection and responsible mining in the country,” he added.
The finance official also recalled that during the February 7 Cabinet meeting, Duterte directed the DOF and DENR to convene the MICC on February 9 to comprehensively discuss the results of the DENR audit and recommendation to shutter 23 mines and suspend the operations of five others.
“Hence, there was no usurpation of the DENR’s functions by the MICC because the President himself has ordered that the results of the DENR audit be discussed and reviewed, which is within the powers of the MICC,” Agabin said.
When the MICC convened its first meeting on February 9, Agabin said its members reached a unanimous decision to conduct a multi-stakeholder review of the country’s mining operations, with the personal lawyer of DENR Secretary Regina Lopez’s — Christian Monsod — even actively participating in the drafting of a resolution for this purpose.
Lopez herself was present at that February 9 meeting of the interagency council in which an agreement was reached on an MICC review of the audit conducted by the DENR last year that led to Lopez’s closure and suspension orders, said Agabin.
He also noted that Lopez, along with Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III also signed MICC Resolution No. 6 calling for such a multi-stakeholder review.
The secretaries of the DENR and DOF co-chair the MICC.
Moreover, Agabin said, Lopez’s deputy, DENR Undersecretary Maria Paz Luna, who had attended the subsequent MICC and its Technical Working Group (TWG) meetings on the secretary’s behalf, had even volunteered to make available for MICC review the DENR audit report last year that served as basis for Lopez’s closure and suspension orders.
Luna is the DENR Officerin-Charge Undersecretary for Legal Affairs.
As for the R50-million budget requested by the MICC from the Department of Budget and Management for the multi-stakeholder review, Agabin said “this amount is reasonable and justified, given that the task involves not only the 28 affected mines ordered either closed or suspended by Lopez, but all 311 mining contracts across the country.”
Agabin said “that among the powers and functions of the MICC is to submit a work plan for the implementation of EO 79, thus, creating the multistakeholder teams to conduct the review is within the authority of the MICC to implement this executive order.”
While Section 3 of EO 79 provides that a “multi-stakeholder team led by the DENR shall conduct a review of the performance of mining operations,” in the country every two years, no such review has been done since EO 79 took effect in 2012, Agabin said.