RP mining industry still facing rough sailing

BAGUIO CITY— Resuscitating the ailing mining industry is still as rough as storm in the high seas.

This was what Mines and Geosciences Bureau chief Horacio Ramos said yesterday during the opening of the Luzon-wide Mining Workshop here.

The consultative meeting was attended by industry stakeholders including civil society groups.

The two-day consultation will try to thresh out outstanding issues in the industry, notably the two-year old National Minerals Policy (NMP), which is geared to fine tune disagreements between existing mining laws and the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA).

Ramos said it will also chart how amendments that will be integrated into the NMP hoping to spur a revitalized mining industry.

The Luzon-wide consultation will be followed by another consultation for the Visayas and Mindanao and will culminate in a national conference also this year.

Ramos admits the still unresolved constitutionality question raised at the High Tribunal against RA 7942 specifically on the 100- percent equity sharing of multinational mining firms is hindering investors from pump- prime the local industry.

This as he regarded the anti-mining sentiment also an important input in the framing of the mineral policy of the government.

At least two hundred protesters staged a picket in front of the consultation venue calling for the abolition of the NMP.

Wyndle Bolinget of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance said the NMP is just a repackaging of the same old policies that were dependent on foreign investment.

"For the purpose of attracting such investments, the framers of the NMP are willing to place our national patrimony in the hands of foreign firms and institutions," Bolinget lamented.