Please feel free to verify if the Secretary did rescind the ban...

Please feel free to verify if the Secretary did rescind the ban or not:

https://mb.com.ph/2021/08/12/denr-to-keep-nationwide-ban-on-open-pit-mining/

A highly placed source at the DENR told Business Bulletin that it was Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu who made the direct order to remove such a provision in the IRR, which took several weeks before it was finally approved.

On Thursday morning, Business Bulletin reported that Cimatu already signed the IRR of EO 130, a copy of which was just obtained Thursday afternoon. EO 130 amended EO 79 and officially lifted the country’s ban on new mining projects.Based on the four-page IRR, which was contained in the DENR’s Department Administrative Order (DAO) 25, the agency decided to take out its earlier provision that would lift the whole of DAO No. 2017-10 or the ban on open-pit mining.

Under DAO No. 2017-10, which was issued by late and former DENR Secretary Regina Paz Lopez, open-pit mines “have ended up as perpetual liabilities [on the part of the government], causing adverse impacts to the environment, particularly due to the generation of acidic and/or heavy metal-laden water, erosion of mine waste dumps and/or vulnerability of tailings dams to geological hazards”.

“The big reason [for keeping the ban on open-pit mine] is the IRR. We don’t want a lot of people to criticize the IRR just because of that provision. The Secretary doesn’t want any trouble that’s why we decided that we will not address that [in the IRR],” the source further said.