By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
JOSE Panganiban Mayor Ricarte Padilla said that there are a
number of undeveloped mining claims in his municipality and that they should be
cancelled.
Paddila said “there are allegedly mining claims in our
municipality which have never been actually used by the claimants.
“Dormant or unused mining claims are made as tools by
claimants to collect royalty fees only without them (claimants) actually
undertaking any mining operations.”
“This is one of the very reasons that we are applying for
the declaration of our municipality as Mineral Reservation.”
Padilla has also proposed the cancellation of all unused
mining claims in the LGU’s area of jurisdiction.
Padilla raised this concerns in a recently letter to
Executive Secretary Paquito N Ochoa Jr, in which he appealed for the creation
of a “municipal mining regulatory board”.
The mayor was reacting to a provision of a draft Executive
Order entitled “Upgrading Environmental Standards and Increasing Government
Revenues in Mining” creating a Provincial and/or City Mining Regulatory Board
within three months from the effectivity of the EO.
Padilla said: We are perplexed as to the wisdom of the
provision because most of the mining activities are conducted in municipalities
and so rarely in the cities.
While most mining activities are done in municipalities,
there is no such thing as the Municipal Mining Regulatory Board, he said.
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