THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said its outlook for the revenue to be generated by the mining industry for the government is positive despite changes to the industry’s tax regime being proposed in various tax reform bills.
“We see a positive outlook for the mining industry. What the MICC (Mining Industry Coordinating Council) is saying was the new fiscal regime will happen once the second package of the TRAIN Law is passed and that will really provide a more advantageous package for the government,” DENR Undersecretary Analiza A. Rebuelta-Teh told reporters in a briefing on Thursday.
“In that case, although (a pending bill decreases) the royalty for the mineral reservations, it can be offset (elsewhere) in the new fiscal regime,” Ms. Teh added.
The Department of Finance (DoF) announced this week that the MICC has agreed to conduct the second round of an ”objective, science-based, and fact-finding” review of mining operations for next year to cover the 15 remaining mining firms out of the 41 initially reviewed by the DENR under its former Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez.
During the meeting, the MICC deferred a recommendation to remove the moratorium on the issuance of new mineral agreements.
“TRAIN only increased the excise taxes and did not cover the implementation of a new fiscal regime for mining. The new fiscal regime proposed by the DoF covers other taxes and fees, such as royalty, windfall, profit and incentives,” the DoF said in the statement, noting that this clarification led the MICC to defer the recommendation.
DENR Undersecretary Jonas R. Leones said that suspended mining companies have to submit their action plans which will be composed of rehabilitation actions to the environmental damage they have caused.
He also noted that mining companies whose operations were ordered to cease also have to submit a progressive rehabilitation plan as well. — Reicelene Joy N. Ignacio
