The Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) will meet for the second time tomorrow (March 3) to discuss the nitty-gritty of the three-month review that the five technical review teams (TRTs) of this Council’s Technical Working Group (TWG) are set to do starting this March on the 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 in the meeting such review details as the organization and funding requirements of the five technical review teams (TRTs) 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 this week.

“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 TRTs 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.

The review shall be based on “the guidelines and parameters set forth in the specific mining contract and in other pertinent laws, taking into account the valid exercise of the State’s police power to serve the common good of the poor,” the MICC resolution read.

The TWG, in turn, met on Feb. 20 and decided to form the TRTs consisting of “technical review experts” who, for the sake of objectivity, “shall be independent and [have] no known conflict of interest” with the mining sector or any anti-mining nongovernment organization.

Such a review will be conducted over a three-month period, Dominguez said because the teams will pore over each of the mining contracts involved in the closure and suspension orders.

Under the organizational framework, these five TRTs will review the compliance of the 28 mine sites with applicable agreements, submissions, laws and regulations and impact of their operations, taking into account five aspects agreed upon during the Feb. 20 meeting of the TWG.

Each TRT shall cover these five aspects that involve the 1) technical, 2) legal, 3) social, 4) environmental, and 5) economic (including the effect on agricultural reform areas) impacts of the mining operations.

According to Finance Undersecretary Bayani Agabin, who was present at the TWG’s organizational meeting, the review is “pursuant to Executive Order 79,” which requires that the MICC review mining operations in the country every two years.

Agabin said the mandate of the MICC covers all 311 mining contracts across the country, but the review will first begin with the 23 sites ordered shut down by the DENR.

The DENR ordered last Feb. 2 the closure of 23 mine sites and the suspension of operations of five others across the country. A week later, it ordered the cancellation of 75 mineral production sharing agreements (MPSAs) still in the pre-operation stage that the government had forged with mining companies.

“The review shall take off or refer to the existing reports conducted by the DENR’s audit team and Technical Review Committee along with existing laws, rules and regulations,” said Agabin, who heads the Legal Affairs Group and Revenue Integrity Protection Service (RIPS) of the Department of Finance (DOF).

Agabin said the DENR will make its audit findings available for the TRTs to review.

The five TRTs will tap the academe and will engage experts from State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) to help conduct the review, Agabin had said.

For the technical part of the review, the MICC will tap either a geologist, mining engineer or a metallurgical engineer from the private sector, while a lawyer, also from the private sector, will be hired to review the legal aspect.

A community relations officer will be involved in the social aspect, an environmental management officer will focus on the environmental impact, while representatives from the local government units, DOF, Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and other concerned government agencies will go over the economic aspect of the review.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) and the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) of the DENR will also provide qualified technical personnel and provide available data and records to each TRT.

Agabin said the results of the review of the five TRTs will be submitted to the MICC’s multistakeholder TWG, which will verify the technical report before the final presentation to the MICC.

The MICC will present the findings and submit its recommendations to the Office of the President, which shall make a final decision on the DENR’s closure and suspension orders.

The DENR’s closure and suspension orders will cost 17 affected cities and municipalities in 10 provinces over P821 million annually in foregone revenues, according to updated estimates submitted by the DOF-attached Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) last week.

The latest estimates, which is an increase from the initial P653 million submitted last February by the BLGF, is based on the 100 percent compliance of city and municipal treasurers to a DOF order for each of them to submit a report on the revenue impact of the DENR orders on the affected LGUs.

BLGF’s estimates do not include yet the projected income losses of the LGUs that host 75 mine sites whose MPSAs were ordered cancelled by the DENR last Feb. 14.

“The total estimated potential revenue loss from the direct payments of mining firms and the shares from mining taxes of affected LGUs amounted to P821.13 million,” the BLGF said in its report to Dominguez.

Of this amount, local collections of the affected LGUs from mining firms amounted to P340 million, comprising real property taxes (RPTs) of P53.54 million, P263.13 million from business tax, fees, charges and other local charges, and P23.29 million from provincial revenues. The share of the affected LGUs from mining taxes collected by the national government account for P481.17 million.