Deeper and deeper

This is the second in a two-part series on the recent "Digging Deeper: A Mining Philippines Policy Forum" held at Westin Manila by the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP).

- ATTY. MIKE TOLEDO

I had previously mentioned that notwithstanding the support the administration of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has given to the mining industry, we know that this is not unqualified.

The support is not just for the extraction of minerals per se because of its socio-economic benefits. Our government also wants to ensure that the implications of mining on the integrity of the ecosystem and on the livelihood and well-being of communities are addressed in a responsible, sustainable manner.

After COMP adopted the Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) initiative of the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) in December 2017, as a response to the call of the then-President for the industry to adhere to the highest international standards, we embarked on a six-year preparation period that saw, among others, our members participating in the Filipinization of eight TSM Protocols, the formation of our multi-sector Community of Interest Advisory Panel, the accreditation of our External Verifiers, and the designing, development, and cascading of the TSM Mine Site Sustainability Audit online app or MSSA.

This year, we are fully implementing TSM, following our commitment to our stakeholders. As scheduled, all our 19 operating member-mines submitted their TSM self-ratings from March to May via the MSSA for their 2023 TSM performance and eight of these mines were externally verified from June to July.