Dispelling apprehension that allowing small-scale mining could further lead to environmental degradation, dela Cruz assured that the MGB regularly conducts inspection and technical assistance to small-scale miners.
Lomino Kaniteng, president of the Benguet Federation of Small Scale Miners (BFSSM), supports the plan, saying this would reduce the illegal mining activities practiced by small-scale or pocket miners.
Kaniteng said allowing small-scale miners to operate in abandoned or idle sites could add to the country's income as he stressed that compared to bigger mining companies, small-scale mining, through the years, was able to generate billions of pesos in income.
MGB records showed that from 2002 to 2004, the small-scale mining sector contributed more than 8,000 kilos of gold or 32.24 percent of the total metal output of the Acupan Contract Mining (ACM) project, Philex Mining (PM) and Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company (LCMC), which translates to P4.8 billion or US$85.4 billion.
Last year, small-scale miners continued to surpass the targeted production of minerals by being able to produce 3,242.31 kilos of gold amounting to P2.4 billion.
Kaniteng, meantime, assured they would police their ranks so that selling of gold and other minerals would be directly to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and not to individual buyers. He added that it is their intent to educate their members on their responsibility to pay taxes to the government.
He revealed that some of their members prefer selling to individual buyers because the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) could not trace the transaction in line with the payment of income tax.
There are 10,000 active and regular small-scale miners in Benguet.
Republic Act (RA) 7076 is the people's small-scale mining program being implemented by the MGB through provincial or city mining boards to achieve an orderly, systematic and rational scheme for the development of small-scale mining and the utilization of natural resources in certain mineral areas to address the social, economic, technical and environmental problems connected with small-scale mining activities. (RO)
