MGB optimistic it will breach 50 Minahang Bayan areas before end of Duterte administration

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) is optimistic it will reach over 50 Minahang Bayan areas before the end of President Duterte’s term.

In a virtual forum yesterday, MGB director Wilfredo Moncano said there are currently 49 Minahang Bayan areas in the country. A Minahang Bayan or People’s Small-Scale Mining Area is an area given by the government to small-scale miners under actual exploration, development, exploitation or commercial production.

“In the Philippine Development Plan up to 2022, we submitted a target of up to 50 Minahang Bayan all over the country.

We’re now at 49 areas, so we only need one more,” Moncano said.

He stressed that the number of Minahang Bayan areas would exceed the target of 50 sites before June 30 or by the end of the current administration.

“We’re already near that target, but as I said, there are still more than 100 small-scale mining operations that need to be legalized. We will be able to reach that in the coming years,” Moncano said.

The MGB director said there are only about 115 pending Minahang Bayan applications. He emphasized the need to accelerate the approval of the applications, so that illegal small-scale mining operations can be formalized or legalized, and can also sell their mineral output.

“Most of them are gold mining operations, so most of the small-scale mining operations can sell their gold to the central bank,” Moncano said.

He cited a law passed in 2019 that exempts small-scale miners from the payment of income taxes and excise taxes and encourages more small-scale miners to apply for a Minahang Bayan declaration.

Moncano said the government began the approval of Minahang Bayan areas in 2016 as part of its efforts to formalize the small-scale mining sector.

“We had six approved minahang bayan or people’s small-scale mining areas, but up to this time, we have 49 Minahang Bayan all over the country and it’s still ongoing,” he said.

Declaring an area as a Minahang Bayan will centralize the processing of minerals within a zone where the government will be able to monitor gold production by smallscale miners better.

It helps the government curb illegal mining and mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of indiscriminate mining operations in the country.

The Provincial Mining Regulatory Board will have direct supervision and control over the programs and activities of the small-scale miners within the Minahang Bayan.