MICC meeting anew on March 3

March 2, 2017

The Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) will meet for the second time Friday to discuss the three-month review that five technical review teams of this Council's Technical Working Group are set to do starting this month on 28 mining operations ordered shuttered or suspended by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, who co-chairs the MICC with DENR Secretary Regina Lopez, said the council will discuss such review details as organization and funding requirements of the five technical review teams and the TWG that will oversee their actions.

“The second meeting of the Technical Working Group will be held this Friday, and we’re going to start the work to make sure that all the issuances regarding mining were done through due process,” Dominguez said at a press briefing in Malacanang..

“They (TWG members) will present the plan on what they will do and also, the budget, because they will have to get professors from state colleges and universities and private universities, experts from different fields, and they will have to travel so there’s some money to be spent so we have to make sure that there is a budget for that,” added Dominguez, who is expected to attend the March 3 meeting.

As agreed in its organizational meeting last Feb. 20, the TWG is creating five technical review teams to conduct an “objective, fact-finding, science-based” review of the DENR's closure and suspension orders.

When asked during the Palace briefing on the possibility of the MICC and its TWG reversing the DENR closure and suspension orders, Dominguez said: “I’m sure Secretary Lopez welcomes the opportunity for the MICC, which she co-chairs, to review the actions that were recommended by her staff. We just want to make sure that they have followed due process. And of course, if there are some lapses in the due process, they can always correct it. They can always correct the lapses in due process and proceed with what they want as long as the due process, as specified by law, has been followed.”

Asked to comment on the position of the mining industry, Dominguez told reporters that “the position I support is the position of President Duterte, which is we must follow due process when we are dealing with all kinds of activities."

“We must honor our contracts and we must behave as a government that is responsible. That is the only position I support,” Dominguez said.

The finance chief pointed out during the briefing that many of the municipalities hosting the mine sites ordered shut down or suspended by the DENR relied heavily on the taxes and other fees paid by mining firms.

The TWG was created based on MICC Resolution No. 6 issued last Feb. 9, when the Council first met to discuss the closure of 25 mines and the suspension of operations of three others across the country. DMS