Small-scale gold operation goes on at the shallow waters of Mambulao Bay. The miners are panning the gold tailings that have been dumped into the bay from nearby gold mining operations, making the water murky and brownish. The municipal government is helpless as it has no authority to stop mining operations like this one, as it falls under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and its bureaus such as the Mines Geosciences Bureau and the Environment Management Bureau. It is hoped that under EO79, LGUs could actively participate in checking bad mining practices in their jurisdiction that destroy the environment. – MWBuzzpic by AP HERNANDEZ
THE RECENTLY-signed Executive Order 79 “fine-tuning” the
country's mining laws turned out to be big letdown for local government units
(LGUs) whose municipalities are hosts to mineral resources such as gold, silver
and chromite.
Their role in mining activities taking place right in their
jurisdiction has not improved; they will remain as plain
"fence-sitters" and watchers while the mineral wealth is being
developed, extracted and milked for billion of pesos in annual revenues.
In short, the EO has undercut LGUs autonomy in dealing
directly with mineral extractions that could jeopardize the health of their
environment.
This is because all action will push under a close watch of
the Department of Natural Resources and its implementing agencies – the
Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau
(MGB), with regulatory powers thrown to the so-called Provincial/City Mining
Regulatory Board (P/CMRB), an entity off-limits to LGUs.
LGUs being outsider to P/CMRB is quite ironic in the sense
that all mining activities are carried out within the municipality, and not in
cities. And yet the municipal government has no seat in this board.
The EO, under Section 12, was very clear in constricting LGUs.
It said: “LGUs shall confine themselves only to the imposition of reasonable
limitations on mining activities conducted within their respective territorial
jurisdictions that are consistent with national laws and regulations".
There was no need for the national government to spell this
out in EO 79 because LGUs were well aware of this when they enacted ordinances
banning mining.
After all, by passing such ordinances, the LGUs were only
exercising their police power and upholding welfare and their constituents'
right to a balanced and healthful ecology" and the well-being of their
local territories and ecosystem.
The new mining order is a virtual warning to local
governments such as that of Jose Panganiban's and its officials led by Mayor
Ricarte Padilla, not to pass ordinances banning mining.
The EO has declared that LGUs must conform to the national
government's policy on mining, which is to pursue "its promotion of
mineral extraction and increase its share in the mining revenues".
However, there is a moratorium in the issuance of permits
for small-scale mining operations that involved gold panning and use of small
equipment, among others.
The temporary halt was initiated following a series of
recent accidents in a number of illegally-operated gold operations in Mindanao
and in certain gold districts in Bicol, including Paracale and Mambulao.
But in the province of CamNorte, this moratorium has been
ignored by no less than the authorities at the capitolyo, who have the
authority to issue permits for small operations.
This prompted the Department of Interiors and Local
Government (DILG) to suspend the province's top police officers and to initiate
an investigation against Gov Edgardo A Tallado on their alleged involvement in
the illegal issuance of small-scale mining permits and for tolerating illegal
mining operations.
Even before the signing of EO79, Ricarte's government has
already been rendered helpless in checking or stopping the operations of a
number of illegal mining operations in the municipality.
There have been new operators with recently-issued permits -
all known to JP-LGU - but could not do anything about them, even if their means
of extracting gold, like the use of mercury, were causing environmental
destruction.
This is because monitoring illegal operations falls under
the office of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) a unit of the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). But in most instances,
it just kept a blind eye on this.
With the EO79, Jose Panganiban-LGU has also lost a big stake
in the abandoned iron ore stockpile in Baranggay Larap, host to the defunct
Philippine Iron Mines (PIM) which shut down in mid-70s.
Being the local chief executive, Padilla has been all along
eyeing the possibility of earning royalty for the LGU from the sale of the
stockpile of several hundred metric tons and worth millions of pesos, since it
is sitting right within the municipality.
But the EO79 has snapped this off, declaring that the
national government owned all "abandoned ores and valuable metals in mine
wastes and mill tailings" and would sell them for the much-needed revenue.
Environment Secretary Ramon Paje told a media briefing a day
after the EO79 signing that "before, mine wastes (were) considered wastes
... but now, we found out that based on recent technologies, we can extract
other metals or other forms of minerals from the mine waste so it is now a
resource input for new processing.
Paje said that the national government has put in the EO
"that all mine wastes, all mill tailings should be considered owned by the
state and, therefore, should be disposed of through competitive bidding".
This brings us to another source of potential revenue for
JP-LGU but is now spoiled altogether by the EO: the iron ore and gold tailings
sitting at the bottom of Mambulao Bay.
These mining wastes had accumulated since the iron mine in
Larap began operations before the war, dumping its wastes into the bay waters
until operations shut down in 1974.
Similarly, the operations at the San Mauricio gold district
atop a mountain that overlooks the Mambulao town had also dumped its gold waste
tailings into Mambulao Bay since it began mining prior to the war years.
Until the signing of the EO, a gold miner was in talks with
the JP-LGU regarding the multi-million-peso dredging of Mambulao Bay to
retrieve iron and gold tailings at its bottom and reprocess the dirt for new
types of minerals as well as gold.
This could have been another source of jobs
for Mambulaoans because processing will take place right within the
municipality.
Now, all this went down the drain because JP-LGU would no
longer be a party to whatever deal involving future operations for such bay
mineral waste recovery and the prospective investor could lose interest in the
venture.
The only consolation that JP-LGUs and the rest of
mineral-hosts municipalities across the country is that EO79 has streamlined
the conduct small-scale mining, by putting all activities within a declared
"Minahang Bayan".
The aim is to contain all activities in one place as an
effective means of containing the waste using a common tailings pond and treat
it efficiently.
Before, the EO, Presidential Decree No. 1899 had allowed the
provincial government to issue mining permits anywhere, which made it difficult
to contain and treat effluents.
Hopefully, in the coming months, Mambulao would no longer
see indiscriminate gold operations that have been the very cause of
environmental degradation around the municipality, as exemplified by the
polluted waters along the shoreline of Mambulao Bay caused by ongoing gold
operations.
The LGUs could also take some consolation from the EO’s
commitment to provide a timely release and even an increase in the share of
national wealth from mining to the LGUs in which mining operations take place
for the benefit of the people in these areas.
Most important also is that the EO has banned the use of
health-hazard mercury in gold extraction, an advocacy that Padilla had pushed
through national forum since becoming the mayor.
Noteworthy, however, some lawmakers have already initiated
the push towards enacting a new mining law that would junk the EO79 and the
Mining Act of 1995 – to give the smaller stakeholders – the mineral-host
municipalities and its people – a better deal in terms of their role in the
development of the mineral wealth that sits right in their backyard.
Concerned LGUs have no option but to support this new
initiative -- it could be the key to their problem.
- A P Hernandez
