DENR urged to implement 'use or lose it' policy

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) should strictly implement its “use it or lose it” policy on mineral tenements, according to National Development Corp. (Nadecor) financial consultant Raymond Ricafort.

While the DENR has a time allowance for mining firms to start operations after securing the necessary exploration permits, Mineral Processing and Sharing Agreements (MPSA) — it has been very lenient in imposing compliance to the time limit, Ricafort noted.

Instead, the DENR, Ricafort said, agrees to repeated renewals of the permit even though the tenement holders have not shown any significant progress in their tenements.

According to Ricafort, strict implementation of the “use it or lose it policy” would greatly help the mining sector, ensuring that those who secure mining tenements really intend to operate and develop their projects, instead of merely engaging in landbanking.

Several DENR heads, from Angelo Reyes to Jose Atienza, Eleazar Quinto and Horacio Ramos had made pronouncements on strictly implementing the “use it or lose it” policy… but to no avail since their terms were all cut short.

At present, Ricafort pointed out, some firms secure mining tenements either for landbanking or speculation.

Such practice, Ricafort said, has caused the mining sector to lose out on global uptrends in mineral prices because there is actually no productive operations.

Nadecor, itself, has been a victim of the failure of the DENR to strictly enforce the use it or lose it policy following the refusal of its estranged partner Benguet Corp. to develop its joint Kingking project in Compostela Valley in Mindanao.

The Kingking project has thus languished for a couple of decades already.

Recently, however, the two parties have been working out a deal under which Benguet will sell its interest in Kingking mines to St. Augustine Mining, a subsidiary of American firm Russel Mining & Minerals, Inc.

Under the deal which is still being hammered out by Benguet and St. Augustine, the American mining firm has reportedly worked out an agreement with Benguet’s creditors to extinguish their debt through a buyback/offsetting scheme.