Raised US$15m / heavily oversubscribed ., page-68

G'day SW. Those Zambales operations received their Supreme court writs in the week before Duterte took over, so perhaps it is a natural progression that they would be suspended by Lopez at that point. As far as I know, Gutierrez got himself in reasonable legal standing under Aquino via Roxas. Moved to large scale permits, even won an environmental award on them (LOL, sound familiar RTG holders?), and the issues of over production on the small miners tickets were long behind him. You may know different??? But I can't see Duterte specifically and publicly hammering him at every opportunity without some action coming to back it up. See what this audit process brings about.

It's still early days though and Duterte is currently more concerned with embedding his style, law and order, the multitude of Muslim issues and the NPA. Early on he said in Davao that he doesn't care about development, he doesn't care if capitalists don't vote for him, the next president can worry about that. His priority is to get the social, political and bureaucratic fabric country in a better position so the country can then go on to develop in the right direction.

And these aspirations are why I think he asked Lopez to head DENR. Duterte is not stupid, he would well know Lopez is loopy. And all his mates (the cabinet) would have told him so as well. But Duterte is a master delegator. So under Lopez, Duterte simply does not need to worry about mining at all. He knows that she is absolutely incorruptible, and the industry will be forced into compliance (unscientific and emotive compliance - but compliance nonetheless). Furthermore given his nationalist tendencies, Duterte probably also doesn't care if mineral assets are lost to the state to redistribute (ala Lafayette). The minerals belong to the Filipinos and if there are some fall guys - so be it. And if the industry is further stalled for any new developments creating controversies to distract his egalitarian directives - so be it, the future potential wealth remains. Besides, the populism gained will reward handsomely.

So IMO, Lopez is perhaps a risk, but will ultimately prove easy for Duterte - he doesn't give a cr@p about mining, never has, and he still doesn't have to. But I think he would probably like to see Gutierrez go down at some point. We'll see.