open-pit ban review deemed not urgent

Posted on August 04, 2011 09:25:19 PM

S. Cotabato open-pit ban review deemed not urgent

KORONADAL -- Action on requests to amend South Cotabato's controversial environment code that bans open-pit mining may drag longer as members of the lawmaking Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) "are not rushing their judgment" on the issue, the head of the provincial board said in a recent interview here.

"There's no sense of urgency," Vice-Governor Elmo B. Tolosa, provincial board presiding officer, said in a phone interview early last week when sought for developments on this issue.

As this developed, South Cotabato Gov. Arthur Y. Pingoy, Jr. said late last week the provincial executive department remains firm in implementing the open-pit ban unless the board lifts it, or the court orders such action.

Mr. Pingoy said the province plans to hold a public consultation on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) recently completed by Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI), the company that has the biggest economic stake in this issue.

"British experts will come late August or early September so we can hear an independent or second opinion on the company's EIA, and which maybe the basis for the SP to decide whether they will review the open-pit ban," he added.

The ban on open-pit mining, approved in June last year, was seen as a major hurdle to the planned $5.9-billion Tampakan copper-gold project of foreign-backed Sagittarius Mines.

Mr. Tolosa noted that even if the implementing rules and regulations of the environment code was approved last March, there�s nothing to enforce on open-pit mining so far because Sagittarius Mines' project is still in the exploration stage.

The mining company, which is controlled by Xstrata Copper, the world's fourth largest copper producer, has said its commercial production phase will start in 2016.

But an SMI spokesman had also said earlier this year that construction work on the site will have to start in 2012 if the project is to start commercial operations in 2016, hence, the need to resolve this issue within the year.

Mr. Tolosa, however, would not give a time frame when the provincial board could be expected to reach a decision.

It has been 10 months now since the formal petition to review the environment code was filed before the provincial board.

The petition was anchored on two grounds: that it was contrary to Republic Act (RA) No. 7942, or the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, which did not explicitly ban any mining method, as well as RA 8371, or the Indigenous People's Rights Act of 1997, since the project had the approval of the host community concerned.

The matter remains pending with the committees on environmental protection and justice and legal matters, which are both headed by Ernesto I. Catedral.

The Tampakan project, touted as the largest known undeveloped copper-gold deposit in Southeast Asia, is opposed by the local Catholic Church and other civil society organizations over concerns on human health, the environment and food security.

It also faces security risks from the communist New People�s Army rebels, who have attacked the project site twice since 2008.

The project has also sparked a boundary dispute between South Cotabato and Davao del Sur. -- Romer S. Sarmiento