Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte is backing Malacañang's directive for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to look into legalizing the predominantly unlicensed activities of small-scale miners.
Doing so, Villafuerte said, would allow government to provide such miners with social protection, skills training, and even financial incentives for their operations.
“Environment Secretary Toni (Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga) must act with dispatch on the President’s recent directive for the DENR to strengthen the regulatory framework for small-scale mining with the end view of legalizing the preponderantly unsupervised and perilous activities of these small miners while better protecting the environment,” the veteran solon said in a statement.
“The legalization of more small-scale mining activities, as sought by President Marcos, would let the DENR and its Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) effectively track the extractive activities of these small-scale miners and promote their safety, provide financial incentives for these now largely unsupervised type of extractive activities, generate higher revenue from the mining sector, and do a better job of protecting the environment,” he explained.
The Bicolano also supported the President’s proposal for Congress to amend Republic Act (RA) No.7065, or the “People’s Small-Scale Mining Act of 1991", by incentivizing small-scale mining and extending social assistance, labor protection, and government assistance programs to these miners.
Marcos sought the legalization of more small-scale miners in the country in his recent meeting with DENR officials at Malacañang, just two months after Villafuerte called on Yulo-Loyzaga to work closely with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and other concerned agencies on the full implementation of RA No.7076.
Villafuerte said this would help the department regulate the activity and flush out illegal miners.
During the Yulo-Loyzaga's confirmation hearing with the Commission on Appointments (CA) Villafuerte—the majority leader of this bicameral panel that screens presidential appointees—urged the DENR chief to work on legalizing more small-scale miners.
Villafuerte, who is also president of the National Unity Party (NUP), made this proposal after learning during Yulo-Loyzaga’s CA hearing that only 49 Minahang Bayan applications for small-scale mining areas have been approved thus far from the time RA No.7076 was signed into law by then-president Corazon Aquino in 1991.
The People’s Small-Scale Mining Areas or Minahang Bayan are places where small-scale miners are legally allowed to extract gold, silver and chromite.
Villafuerte told Yulo-Loyzaga that the legalization of more Minahang Bayan applications would enable DENR and its Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) to effectively track small-scale mining activities and better protect the environment.
“The legalization of small-scale mining is definitely a lot better way of monitoring the operations of these miners, because it certainly is far more difficult for the DENR and MGB to track the activities of small-scale miners if they continue operating outside Minahang Bayan areas,” he said.