Marcos: Enforce mining laws strictly
ZAMBOANGA CITY: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to bolster its regulatory powers on small and large-scale mining to ensure that standards are updated and that mining firms are strictly implementing their respective safety and health programs for workers.
Marcos made this instruction in a meeting with DENR officials in Malacañang last week.
“We want to legalize small-scale mining firms because many of them are still illegal and the miners have no protection. We want to strengthen the regulatory framework for them to operate legally and to give our miners assistance and protection for a safe working condition,” Marcos said.
He also expressed the need to enhance social protection and security for workers in the mining industry.
“We might be able to access financing, they might be able to access social protection,” Marcos told DENR officials.
“The miners… they have no safety. A lot of them have died,” Marcos lamented, referring to miners who do not have the proper training or inadequate safety measures inside the mines.
On small-scale mining, there are bills that the President may certify as urgent, including the amendment to Republic Act (RA) 7076 to incentivize small-scale mining (SSM) to provide social assistance and labor protection as well as government assistance programs.
Under RA 7076, or the “act creating a people’s small-scale mining program,” SSM pertains to mining activities that rely heavily on manual labor using simple implementation and methods. The law also defines small-scale mining as an activity that does not use explosives or heavy mining equipment.
“I think for now the need is for the regulatory capabilities, especially for the small scale,” Marcos said.
Destructive mining unabated
In Southern Philippines, destructive mining practices both by small-scale and large-scale miners continue unabated. In Zamboanga Peninsula, open-pit mining has become a practice by commercial miners.
In Tawi-Tawi province, Languyan town shows the devastation of nickel mining activities there. Environmentalists said nickel mining activities have also destroyed the environment on Tumbagaan Island and other sites in Tawi-Tawi. Mining money was also being used in the past to bankroll political campaigns in the Muslim autonomous region comprising the provinces of Tawi-Tawi, Basilan, Sulu, Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao.
As early as 2016, the Regional Legislative Assembly of the previous and the now-defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) had asked the DENR to issue an order stopping all destructive mining activities in the Muslim autonomous region.
In September 2019, the BARMM said it suspended all nickel mining operations in Tawi-Tawi to pave the way for a review of the region’s mining policy. But details of the review were not made public.
The Philippines is the world’s second-largest nickel ore producer in 2018 after Indonesia, with both Southeast Asian nations as the top two suppliers to China, the biggest buyer. Latest available industry data show that 2.34 million wet metric tons (wmt) of high-grade ore, or nearly 90 percent of 2.66-million wmt of the high-grade material the Philippines exported to China in the first half of 2018 came from Tawi-Tawi.
‘Cease and desist’
Tawi-Tawi accounted for 27 percent of overall nickel ore exports, totalling 15.8-million wmt, to China during the six-month period.
In 2016, then-ARMM Assemblyman Hanibal Tulawie, then chairman of the Committee on Environment and Ecology, said that a resolution was passed asking the DENR to immediately issue a “cease and desist” order on all mining companies operating in Tawi-Tawi and also in Basilan, Sulu, Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao provinces after he received numerous complaints from the public and environmentalists who are opposed to destructive mining methods.
Photos of nickel mining operations in Tumbagaan Island posted on Facebook also showed huge trucks and barges hauling off red soil, which was allegedly being shipped to China where it is processed. There were previous reports indicating that Tumbagaan Island was totally devastated because of mining explorations and the nickel mining activities there. The same thing allegedly happened to Panglima Sugala town.
Rehabilitation underway
Then-president Rodrigo Duterte, who was made aware of the mining devastation on the island, has ordered a stop to all mining operations in Tawi-Tawi. Then-cabinet secretary Karlo Nograles said Duterte was very much concerned about reports that Tumbagaan Island has been completely devastated by mining activities.
“The island has, at this point, been mined out. And while rehabilitation efforts are underway, the president is issuing a directive to stop any and all mining,” he said.
Duterte ordered authorities to step up rehabilitation by planting trees in areas devastated by nickel mining. But surprisingly, Duterte did not order an investigation into the mining in Tawi-Tawi or who were the groups behind the environmental destruction. This is allegedly the reason why it was not acted upon by DENR, particularly the Mines and Geosciences Bureau.
The DENR earlier expressed commitment to review mining laws, including small-scale mining, to ensure that standards are updated and that the provision of the implementing rules and regulations takes full advantage of remote sensing and innovation in artificial intelligence.