Statement on the passage of the Enhanced Fiscal Regime for Large-Scale Metallic Mining Act

The passage of the fiscal regime bill is one of many signals from the Marcos Jr administration for opening up the Philippines to more mining. 

The investment of the Maharlika Fund in a mining project in Kalinga, the upcoming department order on critical minerals, and the ongoing efforts to amend the guidelines for free, prior and informed consent—these are all part of a concerted effort to continue to liberalize the mining sector. 

This does not bode well for indigenous communities, which sit on large reserves of minerals and metals, including transition minerals for the production of renewable energy technologies. 

One of the flaws of the bill is also the lack of distributive justice: indigenous communities which agree to mining projects stand to continue to enjoy the paltry 1% royalty set in a previous law. 

Instead of reforming the mining sector through comprehensive policies such as the Alternative Minerals Management Bill (AMMB), the government has chosen to pursue a market-driven approach where metals and minerals are treated as commodities, at the expense of national patrimony and nature. 

The passage of this law will indeed court more mining investments to the detriment of ecosystems, which ought to be protected in the age of the climate crisis.