Duterte Gives Green Light to Mining in the Philippines

Rodrigo Duterte always cast himself as an opponent of new mining projects. Until now.

The Philippine president signed an executive order on April 14 that lifts a nine-year moratorium on the granting of new mining permits, an about-face that anti-mining groups say will threaten a fragile environment and the people who defend it.

The mining industry had pushed for years for Duterte to lift the moratorium, which was put in place in 2012 by former President Beningo Aquino III.

The order says new mining deals will bring “significant economic benefits” to the Philippines, including galvanizing Duterte’s signature Build, Build, Build infrastructure program.

“The mining industry can support various government projects such as the Build, Build, Build program by providing raw materials for the construction and development of other countries,” the order said. This will “increas[e] employment opportunities in remote rural areas where there are mining activities thereby stimulating countryside development.”

The move will likely spur a rush to start several proposed but stalled mining projects and will also ignite opposition to the plans. At least 291 mining applications are pending, including several proposed mines that activists fear will displace rural and Indigenous communities.

Many of these pending applications belong to small-scale Chinese firms planning to develop mines on ancestral Indigenous lands, especially in Mindanao.

The proposed mines, if approved, would also operate in some of the country’s most biodiverse areas, such as the island of Palawan.

Duterte had presented himself as a staunch opponent of mining. He previously threatened to shut down the mining industry entirely, citing the environmental damage it caused, and announced a ban on open-pit mining in 2017.

The president’s first environment secretary, the late Gina Lopez, audited the country’s 50 operating mines and ordered 27 closed or suspended for environmental violations. A panel later cleared 23 of those mines.

But Duterte’s earlier confidence that the Philippines could survive without its mining industry may be a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic, which has brought a previously surging Philippine economy to a standstill, setting up a long road to recovery.

In his order, Duterte mentioned that the Philippines has tapped less than 5 percent of its total mineral resources, a figure often cited by industry groups such as the influential Chamber of Mines.

Aquino had suspended new mining permits until new legislation was passed to create a revenue sharing scheme. In the order, Duterte said provisions of a tax reform law signed in 2017 already satisfied this requirement, an argument also made by mining advocates.

The mining sector has grown during the pandemic as the country’s mines have been allowed to operate, despite strict travel and movement bans governing most of the population.

In October, Secretary of Finance Carlos Dominguez III announced the privatization of government-owned mines. The mining giant OceanaGold said in December the government had granted it permission to operate its Didipio gold mines.

Although mining contributed just 0.76 percent of GDP in 2019, the Philippines is the world’s second-largest nickel producer and has increased exports to meet demand from China after Indonesia, the leading producer, banned nickel exports in January 2020.

Opposing mining in the Philippines, however, can be deadly. The country had the world’s highest number of mining-linked deaths of environmental defenders in 2019, according to the environmental watchdog Global Witness.

Anti-mining advocates, especially Indigenous leaders in rural areas of resource-rich Luzon and Mindanao, frequently report being threatened and “red-tagged.”

The Duterte administration has made clear it will not tolerate dissent. The future for anti-mining advocates, therefore, will become even more dangerous.