Government sets tender for mining tenements

MANILA, Philippines - The government may start the tender for mining tenements within three months after the release of a new mining policy, an official said.

Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) director Leo Jasareno said in an interview over the weekend that the moratorium on the approval of new mining permits would be lifted after the executive order (EO) for the country’s new mining policy is issued.

“Our pronouncement is the moratorium will be lifted after the EO is signed,” he said.

“If the mining policy would be signed, within three months of the mining policy, we will start bidding of mining tenements,” he said further.

He said the new mining policy could be issued within the month.

President Aquino said earlier that the mining policy would be issued no later than February.

The government has yet to release the EO though, with officials citing the need for more consultations.

Jasareno said that among the proposed provisions in the country’s mining policy is to subject the issue of mining permits to an auction or tender process instead of granting permits on a first-come, first-served basis.

The government, he said, is considering holding an auction for mining applications as it would allow the government to get more revenues from mining.

Not all mining tenements, however, he said, are being considered to be auctioned off.

“Some areas will be up for tender like the cancelled mining applications, and metallic sites seen to have high potential. The non-metallic sites probably would not need to have tender process,” he said.

Meanwhile, the leader of an indigenous people in the Cordilleras issued this statement: “As major players in the mining industry debate their respective social responsibilities in the exploitation of our country’s vast mineral resources, they should not lose sight of the rights and concerns of the indigenous people over their ancestral lands and domains.”

Former Ifugao Governor/Rep. Gualberto B. Lumauig issued the statement in reaction to the heated mining industry dialogue in a Makati hotel last week.

“We need a reaffirmation from our government and the mining industry stakeholders that our indigenous peoples’ occupation, possession and propriety rights over their ancestral domains are their exclusive birthright and privilege that should seriously be taken into account when government, through its licensing mandate, starts allowing developers and investors to encroach on these ancestral territories,” Lumauig said.

“Articles XII and XIV of the Philippine Constitution give explicit protection to the rights of indigenous cultural communities over their ancestral lands,” Lumauig said. Similarly, the United Nations in a formal resolution adopted in 2007 the “Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People” solemnly setting out their individual and collective rights to ancestral domain and lands, Lumauig added.

As in the case of the Cordilleras, many mining operations are located in IP lands. Government should revisit its one percent royalty on the gross value of minerals produced in the area, and consider a more acceptable excise tax that can really ensure socially beneficial grants to the IPs, the former Ifugao governor suggested.

IPs constitute 16 percent of the country’s total population, or close to 14 million people. There are 111 ethno-linguistic groups spread all over the country, to include the Lumads, the aborigines of Mindanao. Their ancestral lands are considered quasi-sovereign nation-state that never surrendered to colonial rule and consistently asserted their tribal sovereignty.

“With these facts, as new government guidelines are deliberated upon to open up our mineral resources to big-time investors, our IPs are urgently requesting, for the sake of social stability, that they not be left behind again,” Lumauig concluded.