The Trouble With Lifting the Open Pit Mining Ban in the Philippines

Last month, Philippine Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu publicly announced that the ban on open pit mining could be lifted before the end of 2017. His comments quickly reopened an ongoing debate in the Southeast Asian state about the costs and benefits of the practice and exacerbated ongoing concerns around the government of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Cimatu made this statement after the Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC), a government body that reviews the country’s mining policies, voted to reverse the ban, which was imposed by Cimatu’s predecessor last April. This policy shift once again illustrated the influential voice of the Chamber of Mines in the Duterte administration, following its lobbying for the ultimately successful removal of Gina Lopez as secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

During her ten-month stint as DENR secretary, Lopez ordered the closure of 23 mines and the suspension of five others for allegedly violating the country’s environmental laws. She also moved for the cancellation of 75 mineral sharing agreements entered into by the government. And last April, she issued an administrative order imposing a ban on the open pit method of extracting copper, gold, and silver.

Lopez’s decision was welcomed by grassroots activists, indigenous peoples, and environmentalists, who had all raised concerns about the negative environmental impacts of mining on the country. Naturally, miners opposed the ban and accused Lopez of sabotaging the local economy.

Initially, Duterte publicly supported Lopez even though some of his campaign financiers and Cabinet members are mine operators. Indeed, he joined Lopez in denouncing the dirty legacy of large-scale mining in rural areas, especially in the southern island of Mindanao. But Duterte fell silent when Lopez was rejected by the powerful Commission on Appointments as DENR secretary, prompting some to suspect that mining interests had finally secured the support of the president.

Duterte then appointed Cimatu to replace Lopez, which all but confirmed this change of heart. Despite his rants against mining, Duterte entrusted the stewardship of DENR to a retired army officer who was once accused by environmentalists of using state troops to guard mining operations. Duterte, for his part, claimed that he wanted a military man to lead the DENR so that the agency can forcefully execute its mandate without fear of being bullied by the mining sector.

The news of the potential lifting of the open pit mining ban was greeted with a cautious welcome by miners, who vowed to adhere to environmental standards. But Lopez rightly pointed out that in the country’s history, not a single abandoned open pit mine has been rehabilitated. She also criticized the MICC for betraying its duty to the people.

“Instead of making a stand for our people, they have catered to business interests. The history of mining in this country is of suffering,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

Meanwhile, Katribu, an organization of indigenous peoples, warned that the lifting of the open pit mining ban could displace millions of people. It added that there are currently 229 approved mining applications covering more than 540,000 hectares of ancestral lands.

The Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE), for its part, is urging Duterte to keep the ban on open pit mining at least until new mining policy reforms are put in place. Further, the group wants to repeal the mining law, which it claims has legalized the wanton destruction of watersheds and other critical habitats across the country.

Duterte has not yet issued a statement on the matter, although he is expected to support the decision of Cimatu and the MICC. But aside from protecting the environment and the ancestral domain of indigenous peoples, Duterte should consider the impact of open pit mining on the ongoing land-related armed conflicts in resource-rich Mindanao, something that might more directly affect his administration’s agenda. Displacement of rural villagers could ignite more clashes involving state forces, which are often tapped by local politicians and foreign investors to secure mining sites.

Duterte is no doubt aware that mining plunder in the past has sparked an armed resistance among various tribal groups, which has in turn boosted the strength of communist rebels in remote villages. For an administration that has vowed to end two insurgencies in the southern part of the country and has been anxious to declare the defeat of the Islamic State there, this is a point worth considering carefully. Conflict triggered by the expansion of open pit mines is the last thing the Duterte government needs right now.