The Department of Finance (DOF) said on Thursday it wants more mining companies to support the Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (PH-EITI), which currently has 36 supporter firms, to better implement reforms and good governance that help ensure sustainable mining in the country.
The PH-EITI serves as a platform for dialogue by stakeholders, and as source of credible information to inform policies on the appropriate fiscal regime for mining.
Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said a strong governance framework will ensure that mining companies remediate the mining sites, in line with the government’s thrust to enable communities to create wealth that benefits all and to protect the environment.
“The solution is not to arbitrarily ban extractive industries, whatever contractual obligations the government has with investors. The solution is to improve governance, so that we get the best of both worlds, ensuring the sustainability of our environment on one hand, and creating wealth for our people from our natural endowments on the other,” Dominguez said during the PH-EITI national conference held at the Manila Hotel.
He said there were times when the governance of the extractive sector proved weak, which resulted in massive deforestation, leaving only 11 percent of forest cover for the country. This further resulted in calamities involving poorly regulated mines.
“The Duterte administration, I assure you, will be firm but fair. It is committed to bring forth strong, but not arbitrary, governance. It will abide by global best practices in ensuring sustainable development. All these become possible because of transparency in our processes. Never again should suspensions be meted out on the basis of unseen audits. Never again should honest industries be subjected to levies without legal basis,” he added.
In the PH-EITI 2014 report, total reconciled revenue streams for the year expanded 32 percent to P53.852 billion, from P40.699 billion in 2013. This includes revenues from the mining, oil and gas sectors.
“One could be environment-friendly and business-friendly, at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive inclinations. Only the zealots think they are,” he said.
According to Finance Assistant Secretary Ma. Teresa S. Habitan, the department is hoping the noncomplying companies in the extractive sector will eventually be tapped to further provide transparency in the extractive industry.
“So this year, we are starting the process for 2015 and 2016, so we are still gathering data. We hope that the number will remain at about 30 plus, and we will keep it at that if not higher, because there are still some noncomplying [firms] since it is voluntary. So we are hoping we keep the same number of large metallic mining and in the oil and gas sectors also,” Habitan told financial reporters at the sidelines of the event.
Earlier, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) has mandated mining contractors to comply with Administrative Order 2017-07 signed by then-Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez in March, requiring all mining contractors to comply with the requirements of the PH-EITI. Failure in compliance to the disclosure requirements will result to the suspension of the company’s environmental compliance certificate.
“Well, we want to see bigger participation not only from large scale metallic mining industry, so we can also look at other extractive industries. We are currently doing scoping studies to include nonmetallic, possibly cement or other extractives, quarrying and so on. So we are trying to look whether we can do the same thing that we are doing for large-scale metallics. Of course, our focus at this point is the large-scale metallic, we want to see more companies participate,” she added.