Second round of mining audit starts this month

MANILA, Philippines — The inter-agency Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) is set to start this month the second round of industry audit which will cover 17 mining sites across the country, the Department of Finance (DOF) said yesterday.

Finance Undersecretary Bayani Agabin said the second audit of mining operations would begin on the fourth week of July, and is expected to be completed by January next year.

It comes after the first audit last year, which involved 26 mining sites in the country.

Agabin said the audit will be conducted by the same technical teams that undertook the first round of review.

“The MICC will complete the review and management teams in the second and third week of July. We will tap around 15 experts from the same technical teams that did the first audit,” said Agabin, who chaired an MICC meeting held recently.

Agabin said the 15 experts will be grouped into three teams with five members for each panel, and will have senior and junior technical and research assistants to help them with the audit.

Much like in the first audit, Agabin said the experts would assess the environmental, economic, social, legal and technical aspects of the mining operations.

Under Executive Order 79, the MICC is tasked to conduct multistakeholder reviews every two years and advise the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on the performance of existing mining operations, in consultation with local government units.

The council initially conducted a review on 26 mining operations ordered closed or suspended by former Environment secretary Regina Lopez last year.

Following the audit, the DENR decided to suspend three mining companies which failed the MICC review, and warned nine others of possible suspension subject to the implementation of a rehabilitation plan.

Earlier, the MICC also deferred making a recommendation on the lifting of the moratorium on the issuance of new mineral agreements, pending the passage of a bill which seeks to overhaul the mining industry’s fiscal regime.

Under EO 79, a moratorium on new mineral agreements should be implemented until a legislation rationalizing existing revenue sharing schemes and mechanisms have taken effect.