Nickel-Laden road beds

Nickel-Laden road beds
A cooperative mining project - in a reality of people, their struggles and their loves . .

Sunday, March 4, 2012

The solution to Mining is "small-scale mining" approach


Solution is to control
“The solution is not to ban mining but to control it,” he said.
“We must have mining. It’s just impossible to live without mines 
and you can’t say do it somewhere else. It’s un-Christian,” 
Wallace said.
Wallace, an Australian expatriate and longtime Philippine
 resident, said that if the Philippines were to harness 
mining, it would create hundreds of thousands more
jobs, build more roads and bring basic utilities like
Nickel samples


















water and electricity to the communities.
But if the government were to ban mining, 
illegal mining would still exist, he said.
Brimo said mining, tourism and agriculture were not
mutually exclusive and these industries could
co-exist with each other.
Brimo also shrugged off concerns on the 
environmental footprint of mining, noting that 
it’s very difficult to find viable mining sites
anywhere in the world. He noted that only 62,000 
hectares, or 0.2 percent of the land mass in the country 
was covered by mining claims.
Out of every 25,000 mining prospects in the world, only 
500 will be seriously explored and only one will become 
a live mining project, he said.

Very strict parameters
Lawyer Christian Monsod, a consultant for the Manila 
Electric Co., said he was in favor of mining 
but under very strict parameters.
He said mining could benefit the country 
if four conditions are met: that environmental 
and social costs are accounted for; that the 
country gets full share of value of extracted 
minerals; the institutional capacity of 
government must be put in place; and money 
for mining must be used to create new capital,
including human capital and boost infrastructure 
in the countryside.
At a press briefing after the forum, Chamber of
 Mines president Philip Romualdez said 
small-scale mining must be subjected to the 
same regulatory net as large-scale miners and 
it would take political will to do so.
Although tourism is another potential growth 
driver for the Philippines as cited by 
environmentalists, Pangilinan said most mining sites 
were not ideal for tourism.
“Our mines in Padcal and Surigao are hardly suitable 
for tourism, simply because they don’t have the features 
of an attractive tourist site. And even if tourism were 
possible, we must ask: Are the expected returns from 
tourism comparable to the benefits which mining can 
provide?” Pangilinan said.
“Mining is not the enemy, poverty is,” he said.
Pangilinan also said a government plan to introduce 
the concept of “total economic value,” or TEV, 
in assessing mining opportunities was “intangible, 
elusive and extremely subjective.”
“How does one quantify and test the value 
attached to the beauty of a sunset, the feel of 
early morning mist or the music of water rippling 
through a stream?” he said.

Industry not perfect
In his presentation, Pangilinan admitted that the 
mining industry was not perfect, which sometimes 
leads to perception that mining is dangerous and 
destructive. He suggested the following:
That national and local policies on mining need to 
be harmonized and the cooperation of local government 
units must be procured in order to subject small-scale 
miners to the same regulation as large-scale miners;
That the capacity and competence of state regulators 
be improved, particularly in regard to equipment and 
quantity and quality of regulatory staff;
That there must be an independent environmental 
commission responsible for supervising and enforcing 
environmental concerns;
That the private sector be open to a profit-sharing 
scheme which will assure the government of a more 
appropriate share in the benefits derived from resources; and
That mining benefits between host local government 
units and the national government be shared more equitably.
It was during his discussion of the Padcal mine in 
Benguet that Pangilinan inadvertently brought the 
face-off to a climax when he figured in a heated 
exchange with environmentalist Regina Lopez, 
managing director of the ABS-CBN Foundation.

Government for mining
Government representatives at the forum indicated 
that government was not against mining but that 
the industry should be made to cough up more 
money, mainly because of its bad track record in the 
Philippines and the country’s need for more revenues.
In a speech at the conference, Jasareno said the 
extractive industry should not run away from its 
responsibility to the environment and the people.
Environment Secretary Ramon Paje said the provision 
imposing a 5 percent royalty fee on top of the 2 
percent excise tax that mining companies are already 
paying would not be changed in the executive order on 
the new mining policy that is being drafted by Malacañang.
Those who want to amend this should bring their case
to the President, said Paje as he stressed that the mining
 industry is getting finite resources from the Philippines.
According to Jasareno, the government recognizes the 
value of the country’s abundant mineral resources like 
gold, copper, iron and nickel, and the need to work 
with the mining industry.
“The government is aware that left on the ground, 
these minerals cannot generate wealth for the Filipino 
people. And the country needs wealth,” he said.

300K small-scale mines
Jasareno said there are 31 mining companies operating 
in the Philippines. Small-scale miners number between
200,000 and 300,000. Permits and mining claims cover 
1.14 million hectares, or 3.8 percent, of the country’s total land area.
He said there are eight projects in the pipeline that 
will significantly contribute to the country’s mineral 
output in the next two to three years.
The country’s mining sector has been experiencing 
a boom in the past year owing to the high prices 
of precious metals, particularly gold.
In 2011, the metallic mining sector posted a 
gross production value of P122 billion, a 
9-percent increase from the P112 billion posted in 2010.
GDP contribution
Despite the mining industry’s improved earnings 
over the years, however, its contribution to the 
gross domestic product has not increased. 
According to Jasareno, the contribution of 
mining to GDP “has not been able to breach 
the 1.5-percent barrier for a long time now.”
“Mining’s contribution to total exports is also 
similarly situated,” he said.
Paje said the government loses P5 billion every 
year from not collecting royalty fees from mining companies.
Jasareno said the mining industry’s presence
in the Philippines over the years has left communities 
with a “nightmare” in their backyard, giving the entire 
industry the bad image of a despoiler of the environment.
“Mining operations in the past have left behind legacy 
mines, or mines that were simply abandoned by the 
mining operators without doing rehabilitation work. 
They are not just gaping holes, but also sources or 
causes of acid mine drainage, siltation, ghost towns
and other nightmares to the host communities,” he said.
“They have become the rallying point of people who oppose 
new mining projects on the simple understanding that such 
new mining projects will end up as new legacy mines,” 
Jasareno said.

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