The Alternative Mining Bill

Saturday, May 16, 2009
Manila Times

NATURE FOR LIFE
By Anabelle E. Plantilla


Last Wednesday, together with colleagues from the Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), representatives from the reli-gious sector and community members and indigenous peoples (IP) from Zambales, Nueva Vizcaya, Ma­cambol and Zamboanga, we motored to the DENR and then to the Batasan Pambansa for the filing of the Alternative Mining Bill (AMB). We were met at the North Gate of the Batasan by Representatives Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel and Walden Bello who are among the authors of the proposed policy. After some short speeches, we all headed for inside the Batasan where the bill was finally assigned a number—House Bill 6342—signalling an-other phase of our advocacy.

The AMB aims to articulate the basic agreements reached by the Dapitan Initiative—a mass-based movement formed in 2002 to counteract the government’s creeping aggressive promotion of large-scale mining operations in the country. It is the result of extensive consultations with different mining-affected communities nationwide. The AMB is a proposed policy to scrap the Mining Act of 1995 and introduce a new mining law to regulate the rational exploration, development and utilization of mineral resources and ensure the equitable sharing of bene-fits for the State, indigenous peoples and local communities.

AMB covers ownership, management and governance of ore minerals onshore, as well as quarry resources, sand and gravel, guano and gemstones. It excludes offshore mining and other resources such as petroleum and coal, natural gas, radioactive materials and geothermal energy, as these are resources that require specific laws.

AMB is a tool to elevate mar­gina­lized and impoverished communities to the level of big businesses (in terms of political power) through the legal system to force government, transna­tional corporations, international fi-nance corporations and other countries to face communities, to address the loopholes of the Mining Act of 1995 and stop unjust mining practices in the country.

Salient features

What are the salient features of the AMB?

In economic terms, it seeks the imposition of royalties to be paid by contractors to national government and local governments. Thus, national government shall receive 10 percent of gross revenues (royalty fee) outside taxes while local government units shall be entitled to share of the net revenues from mining operations paid directly to the provincial treasurer, taking into consideration classification of local government, vulnerability and human development index, besides the local governments’ share from the internal revenue allotment. On the other hand, IPs are entitled to at least 10 percent of gross revenues as royalty, similar to government share.

The AMB seeks the introduction of a new mining industry process, requirements and policies such as the re-moval of the Financial or Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA), which allows 100-percent foreign land ownership. Thus, only Filipino citizens or corporations 60 percent of whose equity is owned or controlled by Filipinos is allowed to mine.

It introduces a new process of screening contractor applications, which provides for a more competitive form of application process that will maximize economic benefits from the industry.

It calls for the removal of the confidentiality provision under the Mining Act and mandates transparency and access to information by the public and prohibits the transfer and assignments of agreements to prevent corpo-rations avoiding their obligations to the State and to the communities.

The AMB decreases the maximum areas to 500 hectares and terms to 15 years including the 5 years for rehabili-tation for mining contractors.

It prohibits the use of paramilitary forces or to contract the services of the military for the private use of the corporation as well as the direct support by the State to the private security of the corporation.

It enumerates the following grounds for cancelation of the mineral agreement which is absent in the current Mining Act: a) human rights violations perpetrated by the contractor or any agent of the contractor; b) bribery, use of force, intimidation, threat of public officials and communities; c) vitiation of the first prior informed con-sent; d) failure to initiate mining operations in accordance with the work program within two years from the award of the mineral agreement whereby a ban of 10 years shall be imposed and the contractor forfeits the value of the improvements made upon the land.

orgsus@haribon.org.ph