The Department of Finance (DOF) wants to further foster the government’s revenue collection from extractive industries, which the Marcos administration believes to be one of the drivers of the country’s long-term economic expansion.

At the FORGE PH: Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative National Conference on Tuesday, Nov. 8, Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said the government already generated P363 billion in revenues from the extractive industries from 2012 to 2019.

To further boost the revenue haul, Diokno said the government should improve the inclusive and date-informed management of the extractive industries.

“With the Marcos administration banking on the potential of the extractive sector to drive long-term economic expansion, the inclusive and data-informed governance of the extractive industries becomes more critical than ever,” Diokno said.

FORGE PH is the annual assembly of the extractive sector that updates stakeholders on progress in achieving greater transparency and accountability in the extractive industries.

This year, the national conference focused on how the PH-EITI can respond to concerns on climate change and energy transition, which is in line with the initiative to incorporate sustainability concerns in the global reporting standard.

“We call on our participants to actively and constructively engage one another and develop concrete actions to improve the management of this very important sector,” Diokno said.

The PH-EITI should be a platform for data transparency and multi-stakeholder participation in extractives governance, Diokno said, reassuring that the government will take necessary steps to strengthen and broaden the space for inclusive multi-sectoral engagement.

As such, local government capacity to govern extractive activities, specifically small-scale mining sectors, will be improved through the subnational implementation of EITI, the finance chief said.

Moreover, the EITI platform will be used to ensure equitable government revenue share from resource utilization, which is demonstrated in PH-EITI’s contribution to the crafting of a new fiscal regime for mining.

EITI data will be utilized to inform the public and stakeholders of initiatives towards climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the transition to low-carbon energy, Diokno said.

With this, Diokno urged stakeholders to continue using PH-EITI data in their research work and policy advocacy.

“As we close in on our first decade of being an EITI-implementing country, we commit to making implementation more inclusive, more meaningful, and responsive to the needs of our stakeholders,” said Diokno.