Senator Robinhood Padilla said that it is high time to revisit the national laws on mining to ensure environmental protection as the government establishes the appropriate policies to increase revenues from the sector.
In a report by the Manila Bulletin. Padilla said that the existing law, like Republic Act 7942 or the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, has light penalties against polluters and violators.
Under the law, violations against the Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) only face a fine of Php 200,000 or up to six years of imprisonment.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Ma. Antonia Yulo Loyzaga agreed with Padilla’s statement, adding that “stability of business environment” is now needed.
She added that the government currently does not have the capacity to attract investments that ensures the social protection of workers.
Padilla also called for improvements in the mining sector, citing the practices in Sweden, wherein the government there was able to gain an equivalent of Php135.422 billion from the sector.
The neophyte senator added that if the Philippines can replicate what Sweden did, the mining sector can help pay off a chunk of the Php13 trillion debt.
The country has gold reserves amounting to $1.4 trillion.
Photo from the Philippine News Agency
