Petition on open-pit mining ban for review

Friday, January 6, 2012

KORONADAL CITY -- The Provincial Board of South Cotabato has yet to render a decision on the petition to review the controversial environment code that bans open-pit mining, an official said Thursday.

It is now 16 months since the petition to review the open pit ban has been lodged, with the aim of allowing Sagittarius Mines Inc. to go on commercial stream in 2016.

Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.

Sagittarius Mines, which is controlled by Xstrata Copper, the world's fourth largest copper producer, will use open-pit mining for its Tampakan copper-gold project, which has an estimated capital requirement of $5.9 billion.

Board Member Ernesto I. Catedral said many of the legislators belonging to the committees tasked to act on the petition have yet to submit their positions.

"The petition is still under serious study by each member. We are guided by what should be the good for many of the constituents as well as [to ensure] the protection of our environment," he said.

"If we maintain the status quo, there’s no harm done to our people," Catedral said.

The ban on open-pit mining stands until a unanimous decision to lift it is reached by the board members, he said.

The petition to lift the prohibition has been pending before the joint committees on environmental protection and justice and legal matters, which is both chaired by Catedral.

So far, Jose M. Madanguit Jr., vice chair of the committee on environment protection, has submitted a position that does not favor a review of the open-pit mining ban.

Madanguit was former chairman of the committee on environment protection of the previous board that approved the controversial environment code, which former South Cotabato governor and now Representative Daisy P. Avance Fuentes (2st district, South Cotabato) signed into law in June 2010.

Vice Governor Elmo Tolosa earlier told reporters that individual board members have been strongly lobbied to favor the review of the environment code for the eventual lifting on the ban on open-pit mining.

The petition to review the open-pit mining ban, filed by the Regional Mineral Development Council in September 2010, was mainly anchored on two grounds -- that it was contrary to Republic Act 7942 or the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 and to a "great extent" Republic Act 8371 or the Indigenous People's Rights Act of 1997.

South Cotabato Governor Arthur Y. Pingoy Jr. said in various occasions he would implement the ban on open-pit mining unless a court nullifies it or the board lifts it.

The implementing rules and regulations of the environment code came out last March.

John B. Arnaldo, Sagittarius Mines corporate communications manager, said the company is pinning hopes the board would favor a review of the environment code to lift the open-pit mining ban as pushed by pro-mining groups.

Arnaldo noted that the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 or Republic Act 7942 does not prohibit open-pit mining method.