NEWSFLASH

46% OF RP GOLD FROM SMALL MINERS

Baguio City, May 31, 2000 - The Bishops-Businessmen Conference (BBC) reports that small-scale mining employs between 200,000 to 250,000 miners in 30 provinces, and produced some 27,059 kilograms of gold or 46 percent of the country’s gold production in 1999.

The report was made by the BBC during a three-day workshop at the Philex Mining Camp site in Tuba, Benguet.

The BBC report concluded that the industry would be an ideal arena in which to implement the government’s poverty alleviation program, making mining more economically advantageous for the people while limiting its environmental impact.

In Benguet alone, there are some 52 small-scale miners association with 27,000 members, said Lomino Kaniteng, president of the Igorot Small Scale Miners and Panners, Inc. These groups trade weekly an average of 0.5 kilograms to 1.5 kilograms of gold in Baguio City.

Thirty gold buyers have been authorized by the central bank that also has its buying station. The buyers purify the gold to some 98 percent before reselling them to local banks.

One problem being addressed is the exclusion of traditional small-scale miners from the 1991 Small Scale Mining Act (RA7076) that was said to have considered only the gold rush in Mindanao.

According to Director Horacio Ramos of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (MGB-DENR), a new law being readied for presentation to Congress by the end of the year will cover traditional mining operations including non-metallic mining activities.

Mining-affected residents and various cause-oriented groups are jittery over the entry of foreign mining companies which is legally allowed by the new Mining Act of 1995 (RA 7942).