Philippine miners slam government’s ‘demolition campaign’, seek meeting with Duterte

Philippine miners claim the government’s environmental crackdown is a “demolition campaign” against mineral producers and want to meet President Rodrigo Duterte amid a spate of shutdowns stemming from the probe, an industry official said.

Duterte’s seven-week old government has so far suspended 10 mines, eight of them nickel, for environmental infractions, sowing fear among large-scale miners in the world’s top nickel producer that more shutdowns may follow.

The country’s mining industry expects to push ahead with US$23-billion worth of new investments from this year through 2020, but this “spirit of optimism is being shattered by ... a very unstable policy outlook,” Benjamin Philip Romualdez, president of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines, said at an industry conference on Wednesday.

“Notwithstanding the ongoing demolition campaign that is maliciously maligning the true nature of legitimate mining, we will not allow anyone, to destroy our industry ... and we will all do this under the rule of law,” said Romualdez.