Reuters - November 4, 2011
MANILA - The Philippines' Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) and TVI Resource Development (Phils) Inc are studying their legal options to contest a new ordinance that bans open pit mining in a southern province, a government official said on Friday.
TVI Resource, the local unit of Canadian firm TVI Pacific Inc , said the ordinance is scheduled to come into effect in Zamboanga del Norte province on Sunday and will require it to close its Canatuan copper mine within one year.
A similar ban enacted last year in South Cotabato, also in the southern Philippines, has put at risk the $5.9 billion Tampakan copper-gold project of global miner Xstrata Plc and Indophil Resources NL .
"The government must act decisively here because these anti-mining moves could snowball and scare away investors," MGB director Leo Jasareno told Reuters.
The Southeast Asian country, which sits on an estimated $1 trillion worth of mineral resources, wants to attract more mining investors and take advantage of higher global metal prices to create jobs and stimulate the domestic economy.
Jasareno said there were three potential legal remedies under consideration by the MGB and TVI's legal teams, including filing a petition for a writ of preliminary injunction, or seeking declaratory relief from the court.
"The third option is to seek quo warranto, which is a remedy available for a government office which thinks its powers have been usurped," he said.
The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines said it was "deeply concerned" by the ordinance in Zamboanga del Norte, which also affects an exploration project of Philex Mining Corp , the country's top gold and copper miner.
"The ordinance, with all its onerous terms including sweeping new provincial regulatory powers over large mining operations that clearly usurp the authority of the national government, is grossly unconstitutional," the industry group said in a statement.
The Chamber said the provincial bans conflicted with the national mining law, which does not prohibit open pit mining.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino told Reuters in September the government hoped to soon have a law that would spell out when national law overrode local government ordinances to resolve the conflicts that have put projects at risk.
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