Mankayan eyes P4M share

MANKYAN Mayor Materno Luspian said over P4 million shares by the town from mining remain to be untapped.

Luspian said the municipality has yet to receive the revenue from the operations of Lepanto Consolidated Mining Corporation coming from Department of Budget and Management.

The chief executive said shares from the mining giant from 2016 have yet to be downloaded to the municipality ruing the tedious process the government has to go through to remit amounts due to the mining town.

Luspian said the law which will facilitate a direct remitTHE

tance for host communities of mining companies has yet to be approved, making collection a long and tedious process of small towns.

Cordillera representatives have long proposed companies pay their national wealth taxes directly to the provinces hosting their ventures.

Provinces in the Cordillera have been hosting large ventures since the 1970s and have grappled over the sharing of the national wealth tax and access to the funds.

The Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (PH EITI) has been doing a survey of industries in the country including the mining sector where the same problem has been cited.

PH EITI studies for 2014 show in Mankayan, LCMC remitted P9,041,741, while in Tuba town where Philex Mining Corporation operates have reached P8,597,862, in taxes while town’s Indigenous Peoples Royalties have amounted to P45,528,749. Mankayan has no identified IP group to remit royalties to.

PH EITI national coordinator Karla Espinosa said since 2013 the group has been surveying industries and coordinating with at least seven line agencies to facilitate the resolution of issues like the delay in remittances to host communities.