THE DEPARTMENT of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said it is open to amendments on the Minahang Bayan program, as proposed by the Philippine Mine Safety and Environment Association (PMSEA).
DENR Secretary Roy A. Cimatu said: “Of course, kasi hindi pa masyado na–i-implement properly. Tulad ng processing, may nakalagay na things na mahihirapan din sila gawin, especially pag-process. Titignan namin lahat. They have to sell the gold to the government, hindi naman nila ginagawa. They have to pay taxes, hindi naman.” (Of course, it’s not yet properly implemented. Like in processing, there are things they will find difficult to [implement] especially in processing. We’ll look at everything. They have to sell the gold to the government, but they’re not doing it. They have to pay taxes, which they’re not).
The Minahang Bayan is an area dedicated to serve small-scale miners, subject to government regulation.
“As we go along, we have to make some changes,” Mr. Cimatu said.
PMSEA president Walter B. Brown earlier said the association believes that all Minahang Bayan in the country should be closed down because it would be disadvantageous to the industry.
“They should close all existing Minahang Bayan and institute a program which we propose, what we call the big brother approach where we get the established big mining company that’s working in the area that would work in coordination with the government and with the small-scale miners,” Mr. Brown said.
“You have to take a unified approach. Some of them you can integrate into mines but deal with the established mining companies because the small also have small capital to comply. In the mining industry now, the first thing we do before we begin to mine is to look where we can build a new acceptable tailing span,” Mr. Brown said, adding that a big brother approach has already been started in Compostela Valley which is working well for the sector.
Mr. Cimatu said adaptation of the big brother approach is a case-to-case basis.
“It is case-to-case. Some instances na nahihirapan sila mag-process (Some instances, the small-scale minders have difficulty processing). They can sell their ore to the big mine. Bayaran lang nila (They just pay the large-scale miners). Mas mabuti nga iyon para ma-count (That’s better so it counts). Kasi ngayon (For now), they process it then wala na (that’s it), they will just sell it outside. Pero ‘pag ilagay sa big brother, babayaran lang nila ‘yung ore then ‘yung big mine, i-report nila (But under big brother, the big mine pays the ore and reports it),” Mr. Cimatu said. — R.J.N. Ignacio

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