The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines said Wednesday it formed a special committee to study the organization’s rules on membership and discipline, with the objective of bringing up its standards for membership participation.
CoMP made the statement following Apex Mining Corp.’s resignation from the chamber. “It is unfortunate that Apex has decided to cut its ties with the Chamber of Mines. We have heard Dr. Brown’s position on the matter of self-regulation and are sympathetic. In fact, since May, long before Apex’s decision to resign, the chamber has already been hard at work on several fronts, particularly on how our member companies can enhance their environmental and social development initiatives,” said CoMP officer-in-charge Ronald Recidoro.
Recidoro said CoMP was studying the mining practices of other countries including the Towards Sustainable Mining or TSM initiative of the Mining Association of Canada and how it could apply its framework in the country.
Adopting the TSM protocols on indigenous peoples and community outreach, emissions and tailings management, biodiversity conservation, and safety and health, can have positive impacts on mining operations, environmental protection and social development, it said.
Recidoro said it was also CoMP that initiated the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (in the country, which institutionalized transparency in the areas of revenue sharing and taxation.
Recidoro said CoMP also introduced the Minerals Reporting Code in the Philippines, standardizing and regulating the information on mineral resources to protect and guide the investing public and the government.
“The chamber operates on the principle of inclusivity. We would like to bring all operating mines within the fold, and hopefully induce them to improve their practices. Our members realize that they can no longer sit idly by and pretend that everything is business as usual,” Recidoro said.
“In the next few weeks, you will be seeing an updated Chamber of Mines with new initiatives, and a board of directors and officers that will be armed with a fresh mandate. We will be more aggressive in communicating our environmental protection and social development activities. More importantly, we will increase our engagements with government and other key stakeholders, to hear their position and consider them in our advocacies. All these changes are in response to President Duterte and Secretary [Roy] Cimatu’s call for the industry to be more responsible miners. Our aim is not just to follow the law, but to try to do better,” Recidoro said.