In the 1980s, The International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the Asian Development Bank advocated for trade liberalization to be a priority in economic policies. Particularly for the Philippines, it was pushed to ease its restrictions and open its economy to foreign investments. This would later on lead to the signing of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 and a boom in large-scale mining applications especially in the Cordillera region where rich mineral reserves had been identified since the time of Spanish colonization. The Mining Act of 1995, in other words, was a signal and a grand invitation for mining investments to come pouring in.
But to attract foreign investors and pave the way for the Mining Act of 1995, the government needed to deal with small-scale mining (SSM). It was a stumbling block for selling the Philippines as a viable investment. SSM was already thriving in areas known to host potentially profitable mineral resources- areas that are of course targeted for large-scale mining.
The government enacted Republic Act 7076 or the Small-scale Mining Act in 1991 to regulate SSM operations, but it was met with resistance from SSM communities, most notably in Benguet, due to its too controlling, technical, and costly processes that were essentially designed to legally restrict small-scale miners. For Indigenous Peoples mining within their ancestral territories, like in Benguet, it was a law that invalidated the right to ancestral domain and the right to benefit from its resources.
The people of Benguet thus met RA 7076 and its succeeding Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) with resistance. Since 1991, the government has failed to restrict SSM operations in the province. SSM operations are yet to be integrated into Minahang Bayan up to the present, and many operations are in effect considered “illegal”. But instead of acknowledging how flawed RA 7076 is, the government continues to hound and hunt small-scale miners who refuse to abide, making the policy a weapon for livelihood repression.
Pollution and other forms of environmental destruction are often cited as the justification for the need to regulate SSM. This line of thought presumes that we, Indigenous small-scale miners of Benguet, are foolish enough to let our ancestral lands, our homes, our residences, be destroyed beyond saving. It fails to consider that we have the capacity to come up with our own regulations, not to mention that we already have our indigenous ways of life reflected in our traditions relating to SSM. We are demanding that SSM be acknowledged as our legitimate livelihood, not demonized under the pretense of environmental protection.
Our experience with RA 7076 and other mining-related laws through the years has shown us that we, small-scale miners, are being pushed to a disadvantage. We were neither recognized nor empowered. For this reason, our critique on the RA 7076 remains the same:
1. The process and requirements outlined in RA 7076 and its IRR are too complex, costly, and burdensome for small-scale mines: Too many forms and technical documents which require money are to be submitted, in addition to the already costly application fees.
2. There are too many conditions imposed on individual miners and small-scale mining contractors: Contractors are required to submit and adhere to unnecessarily heavy paperwork that will also require them to hire or seek assistance from technical or professional personnel. Even mineral processing requires a complicated application process.
3. There is a clear bias towards large-scale mining: The conditions imposed on small-scale miners are far stricter than those on large-scale mining corporations. Small-scale mining contracts are good for 2 years, renewable for another 2, while large-scale mining contracts can go up to 50 years. Large-scale companies can also charge royalties for small-scale mining within their claims, even when their permits have expired.
4. It threatens our right to our ancestral land and indigenous ways of life: RA 7076, with its many bureaucratic processes, requirements, and regulatory stipulations, threatens the traditional small-scale mining practices of indigenous peoples, which have long been governed by ancestral customs. It seems to aim at ending small-scale mining and marginalizing nearly a million Filipinos who rely on it.
Now, under the Marcos Jr. administration, the DENR has declared that it is committed to “formalizing” the SSM sector, and by formalizing, it is intent on implementing RA 7076 and penalizing illegal mining. This is in itself concerning, but it is all the more alarming that the government is pronouncing a streamlined process for large-scale mining applications which we can also see in the proposed changes to the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent guidelines. It has similarly come to our attention that amendments to RA 7076 are being lobbied by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), but we deem the revisions as mere reinforcements to the law. Where do these pronouncements leave the SSM sector? How come that SSM is so vehemently driven for regulation while LSM corporations are pampered?
We resist the government’s discriminatory stance towards small-scale miners. We, Indigenous Peoples of Benguet, have the right to benefit from our ancestral lands and to protect our livelihood. Large-scale mining companies are the ones that should be strictly monitored and regulated. We have already fallen victim to decades of their destructive mining operations, and we refuse to be beggars in our own lands. The capitalist-driven RA 7076 must therefore be scrapped.
