Marcos Jr. plan to legalize small-scale miners’ operations backed

MANILA, Philippines — A lawmaker-ally of President Marcos in the House of Representatives has expressed his full support behind the government’s plan to legalize the operations of the predominantly unlicensed activities of danger-prone small-scale miners.

Rep. LRay Villafuerte of Camarines Sur said the instruction to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources led by Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga to study the matter is a step in the right direction, where miners can also get more skills training.

“The legalization of more small-scale mining activities, as sought by President Marcos, would let the DENR and its Mines and Geosciences Bureau effectively track the extractive activities of these small-scale miners and promote their safety,” he said.

This is important because the government can in fact even provide “financial incentives for their operations,” with the “end in view of legalizing the preponderantly unsupervised and perilous activities of these small miners while better protecting the environment.”

Villafuerte said this would “promote their safety, provide financial incentives for these now largely unsupervised type of extractive activities, generate higher revenue from the mining sector, and (at the same time) do a better job of protecting the environment.”

He is open to Marcos’ proposal for Congress to amend the 31-year-old “People’s Small-Scale Mining Act of 1991” (Republic Act 7065), by “incentivizing small-scale mining and extending social assistance, labor protection and government assistance programs to miners.”

“Limiting small-scale miners to do their extraction activities only in Minahang Bayan areas will enable the government to effectively monitor if these miners are abiding by the law that bans their use of mercury, which is believed to cause respiratory and kidney diseases or even death for people following their high exposures to this neurotoxin,” Villafuerte said.

Executive Order 79, issued by former president Aquino in 2012, prohibits small-scale miners from using mercury in their extraction. People’s Small-scale Mining Program (RA 7076), however, allows them only in government-declared Minahang Bayan areas.

The 1991 (People’s Small-Scale Mining Act of 1991) law defines small-scale mining as activities that “rely heavily on manual labor using simple methods and do not use explosives or heavy mining equipment.”

The People’s Small-Scale Mining Areas or Minahang Bayan areas are places where small-scale miners are legally allowed to extract gold, silver and chromite.

“The legalization of small-scale mining is definitely a lot better in monitoring the operations of these miners, because it is far more difficult for the DENR and MGB to track the activities of small-scale miners if they continue operating outside Minahang Bayan areas,” Villafuerte said.

Small-scale miners are defined by law as Filipino citizens who, “individually or in the company of other Filipino citizens, voluntarily form a cooperative duly licensed by the DENR to engage, under the terms and conditions of a contract, in the extraction or removal of minerals or ore-bearing materials from the ground.”