Inequality 32, Free land distribution, free housing Kadamay

Free land, free housing, free education, free healthcare, free cash transfer, and so on. And soon free iPad, free tricycle or free car for the poor. 

If this is done in the Philippines or in any other country, then many people will stop working.Or they may work 6 days a week but also drink and party 6 nights a week and have zero savings. 100% formula to be poor. Then they will be entitled to those freebies that will not be given if they are not poor.

The targetted beneficiaries will expand every year, or every month. When anti-capitalism, anti-inequality NGOs, politicians, academics, etc. advocate that "If you are poor, you are entitled to lots of freebies", then more people will declare themselves poor, they will scream and curse if government does not give them the freebies.

About four decades ago, it was estimated that about 1/3 of the population was poor. Today, it is estimated that nearly 1/3 of the population is poor. And 3-5 decades from now, various measurements will say that nearly 1/3 of the population is still poor. Meaning the endless subsidies and various welfare programs will continue, and gov't will keep expanding the budget and public debt, will further raise taxes or create new ones, because "poverty remains high". Raket na, large scale.

Before, the poor were mostly walking or riding cows, horses and bicycles. Now the poor are mostly riding motorcycles, tricycles, e-bikes, jeepneys. Before the poor were using smoke signals or doves or snail mail to communicate, now they use cellphones with fb, twitter, emails. There is marked improvement in the quality of life of the poor yet by official measurements, "poverty remains high". Raket na, large scale.

I can understand new welfare programs, they are implicit and explicit admissions that some old but still existing welfare programs are not working and simply waste of taxpayers money. So if new welfare programs have to be created like the CCT, some old welfare programs should be abolished and defunded. This is not happening. The racketeers in these non-working programs create endless alibi that they are still relevant, and OP and Congress agree, so tuloy-tuloy ang over-spending, over-borrowing.

Now these two developments -- CPP-NPA-NDF negotiators in Europe who are mostly non-Filipinos anymore and have acquired European citizenship -- demand free land distribution to farmers. And squatters or illegal land settlers have moved further, became illegal housing settlers. And they were rewarded by the President, the houses they illegally occupied is given to them for free.

Many people are demanding for social revolution -- towards more citizen dependence on the state, towards more state worship. Society of batugan, tamad and irresponsibles. A government that's big enough to give everything you want will also be big enough to take everything you have.

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See also:

Inequality 29, More on Oxfam, squatters and a lamborghini, February 14, 2016

Inequality 30, Filipinos in Forbes' world billionaires, March 04, 2016 

Inequality 31, Economics, politics and forcing equality, January 16, 2017 

Pol. Ideology 70, Socialism and the politics of envy, April 08, 2017

Mining 49, Ma'am Monsod on poverty in mining areas

Recycling an old article I wrote in September 2013, I re-read this BWorld article by my former undergrad thesis adviser in UPSE in the 80s, Ma'am Winnie Monsod.



She wrote,

“… the incidence of poverty in the mining sector is much higher than the Philippine average (roughly twice, if memory serves).…

A 2004 paper by Scott Pegg of the University of Indianapolis, entitled “Mining and Poverty Reduction: Transforming rhetoric into reality”…. found that not only was per capita GDP growth negative for all three categories during that period, but that the growth rates were inversely associated with the level of dependence on mineral exports -- i.e., countries with substantial incomes from mining performance performed less well than countries with less income from mining.
The list of the negative effects of mining (and other extractive industries) continues: countries that become heavily dependent on oil and mineral exports are become more vulnerable to economic shocks (e.g. price volatility), not to mention risk of “intrastate armed conflict,” social risks (price inflation, alcohol abuse, prostitution and child labor). Then there is corruption: Pegg cites the work of Leite and Weidmann (at the IMF) finding that “capital intensive natural resources are a major determinant of corruption.” Further, there is the matter of anti-democratic effects: Ross finds that oil and other minerals impede democracy, but other primary commodities -- which generate few or no rents, produce less export income for the state, and employ a larger fraction of the labor force -- do not….”

The first paragraph is easy to debunk. This table from NEDA's MTPDP 2011-2016 shows the top 25 poorest provinces in the country. Only 5 of these host big mining firms (at least 4,000 hectares) -- Zamboanga del Norte (2 firms), Surigao del Norte (5 firms), Surigao del Sur (3 firms), Mindoro Occ. and Mindoro Or. (2 firms).

In addition, capital intensive large metallic mining firms attract lots of job seekers, both skilled and unskilled. Some would get a job either as direct employees of the mining company or working indirectly in various micro to medium size enterprises around the mining area. Some would not find any job and become marginal and subsistence earning workers around the communities. The latter group is what is referred as “higher incidence of poverty” group of people.

The second paragraph would most likely refer to informal or small scale mining in those countries studied. There are many factors to explain a country’s fast or anemic economic growth. Like the quality and maturity of their institutions that observe the rule of law and penalizes corruption, frequent stealing or plunder. Compare for instance mining rich Indonesia and its neighbor, mining poor Singapore. The level of economic growth and per capita income in the latter is a lot higher than that in the former. The same can be said of mining rich Philippines and its neighbors, mining poor Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The third paragraph is highly suspect as it does not recognize mining rich yet developed economies like Australia and Canada. And the statement has gathered many types of social ills associated with poverty and dragged them as contributed by mining or extractive-dependence. Non-mining rich countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh also have”price inflation, alcohol abuse, prostitution and child labor, corruption.”

An paper from the Philippine Senate five years ago showed this table, nationwide averages.


Source: Alonzo, Emmanuel, Issues Affecting the Mining Industry, Senate STSR Taxbits, July-August 2012.

I think the numbers would approximate current data. Many agricultural farms and enterprises in the Philippines remain non-mechanized and hence, output per worker or farmer is low, whereas large metallic mining is highly-mechanized, output per worker is high.

Allotting some 0.2% to 0.3% of the country's total land area for active mining is not that big and destructive. A big portion of a mining firm's concession area is either for future mining or past, mined-out area that has been rehabilitated and hence, covered with forest or some agricultural farms, plus the usual areas for roads, offices, housing, school grounds, hospital, etc.

Government should recognize the value and job creation function of those big mining investments in a few provinces in the country and not just issue regulations that close down some firms without scientific and transparent basis, while allowing the others to operate but the threat of closure in the near future remains hanging on their heads.
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See also: 
Mining 46, The new DENR Secretary and other watermelon activists, July 07, 2016 

Mining 47, JB Baylon on the DENR Secretary, March 01, 2017 

Mining 48, Sec. Gina Lopez's rants, DENR inaction in other sectors, April 08, 2017

Energy 93, Coal imports in East Asia

I saw these interesting charts from Index Mundi. Data until 2013 only but useful nonetheless. Source is US EIA. The medium-users in East Asia -- MY, TH and PH.

https://www.indexmundi.com/energy/?country=ph&product=coal&graph=imports

The medium users, TW and HK. VN is a small user but there was a huge uptick in importation starting 2005.

 And the big coal users in East Asia -- China, Japan and S.Korea.

So claims like "East Asia coal use has declined" are not true. Asia needs cheap and stable electricity supply.
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See also:
Energy 90, On having mandatory RES for contestable electricity consumers, January 28, 2017 

Energy 91, Thailand's bright nights (part 2), March 03, 2017 

Energy 92, Asia retains big coal use, April 07, 2017

BWorld 121, The PH tax reform bill and tax policies in East Asia

* This is my article in BusinessWorld on March 24, 2017.

The current tax reform proposal of the Duterte administration promises to improve the Philippines’ competitiveness mainly by reducing income tax rates and cutting exemptions in value-added tax (VAT) and other fiscal incentives. The proposal has somehow created three myths in taxation.

1. REDUCING THE INCOME TAX RATE CAN LEAD TO REVENUE LOSS.

No, for two reasons. (a) The Laffer Curve is a good reminder that tax revenues can go down as tax rates increase. High taxes are disincentives to honest business and that is why many companies are hiring good law and accounting firms to either take advantage of legal loopholes and reduce tax payments, or find technicalities bordering on dishonest tax payment. And (b) Hong Kong and Singapore are good examples that low income tax rates do attract more local and foreign businesses, which further expand the tax base.

2. THE NEED TO RAISE EXCISE TAX FOR VEHICLES AND OIL PRODUCTS TO COMPENSATE FOR REVENUE LOSS IN INCOME TAX CUT.

No, for two reasons. (a) Vehicles and oil products are necessary for more business creation -- petroleum is a public good, after all. Petroleum allows huge trucks, buses, airplanes, and ships to transport more people and goods, activities which again expand the tax base; and (b) raising the oil tax (by P6/liter across the board) further raises the cost of doing business in the country.

In the table, the Philippines is third highest in tax payment as percent of commercial profit.

While the taxes on profit and corporate income is comparable to many of its neighbors, its “other taxes” like VAT, documentary stamp tax, franchise tax, capital gains tax, excise tax, etc. charge high rates. So raising the excise tax on vehicles and oil products is a raise on “other taxes” and that will dent the attractiveness of lower income tax.

3. NO NEED TO LOWER VAT, JUST REDUCE THE NUMBER OF EXEMPTIONS.

No. For two reasons: (a) Many industries and sectors have succeeded in their lobby for VAT exemption precisely because the 12% is high; and (b) among ASEAN countries, the Philippines, at 12%, has the highest VAT rate%; five countries have only 10% (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam), Singapore 7%, Malaysia 6%, Myanmar 5%, Brunei 0.

See the column on tax post filing index (PFI), distance to frontier (DTF), 100 being the highest score. The Philippines has a low score of 49.8 mainly due to VAT non-refund policy. Economies with scores of 63 and above either do not have VAT or have VAT but have low compliance time with paying their corporate income tax (CIT) (see table).

So a good compromise will be to bring the VAT back to 10% and remove all exemptions except for raw agricultural and fishery products.

Another observable point from the above numbers is that many countries in Asia (and other continents) were socialistic in their income tax policy, started after World War II until the 1980s. For instance in 1980, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan have income tax rates of 60%, Philippines has 70% and South Korea has almost 90%. The faster pace of globalization from the late 1980s onwards made many governments realize that the Laffer Curve indeed is correct, that the higher the tax rate, the lower will be the business activities and overall tax revenues.

To plug endless fiscal irresponsibility also known as endless and yearly budget deficit that require endless search for higher taxes, certain public spending and subsidies must be cut and certain government offices and bureaucracies must shrink or be abolished. Governments should learn to live within their means, even live below their means, especially during years without crises so they can have fiscal surpluses and pay their ever-rising public debt stock.

Bienvenido Oplas, Jr. is the head of Minimal Government Thinkers and a Fellow of SEANET. Both institutes are members of EFN-Asia.

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See also: 

BWorld 107, Top 10 myths for oil tax hike, January 28, 2017

BWorld 118, Regulate this, prohibit that: bureaucracies in transportation, March 30, 2017 

BWorld 119, Seven myths in the mining debate, April 07, 2017 BWorld 120, Five myths of solar-wind energy, April 08, 2017

Mining 48, Sec. Gina Lopez's rants, DENR inaction in other sectors

The other day, DENR Secretary Gina Lopez was recorded belittling a BWorld reporter as ...

http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Nation&title=denr&8217s-lopez-defends-new-mining-directive-as-she-accuses-ibwi-reporter-of-&145being-bought&8217&id=143441

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/606173/news/nation/gina-lopez-recorded-telling-reporter-you-re-just-a-f-ing-employee

http://interaksyon.com/business/138315/quizzed-on-mining-directive-gina-lopez-vents-ire-on-bw-reporter-youre-just-a-f---ing-employee

The issue is Sec. Lopez's new order requiring mining companies to pay P2 million/hectare for farmlands that are affected by mining, the BWorld reporter asked her about this and related issues and the Secretary lost her temper.  I did not see the new order but offhand, how can the DENR prove which farms are "disadvantaged", at what extent or level, vs those that are not adversely affected?

When this was reported in the news, she was upset, or angry. Well, she is angry that her hypocrisy is recorded and publicized. In public she portrays herself as a caring person but in private she can be a b__c but people should not record and report it. But reporters always record their interviews whether in a formal press conference or informal "press ambush" while walking.

Here is the backlash.

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Other DENR concerns that Ms. Lopez seems to ignore.

These are the mountains in western Pangasinan (municipalities of Aguilar, Bugallon, Labrador), I took this photo just 2 weeks ago. Is Sec. Gina Lopez going there making video behind those bald mountains asking "what have we done for the future, the future?"

No, of course. Why? Because there are no big mining companies to blame there. The DENR and LGU people are not doing enough to stop the regular cutting and stealing of trees in public forest land.

A mountain just behind the NGCP station in Labrador, Pangasinan, photo also taken 2 weeks ago. This is a "public forest land", no big mining or big logging activity there. Would the "passionate" Lopez  go there and record a video lambast the people who regularly steal whatever regenerating trees there? Nope, no media mileage or political pogi point kasi walang mining firm na pweding birahin at sisihin.

Another non-work of "passionate" Lopez. Manila Bay, Paranaque area, article dated February 18, 2017, file photo June 8, 2013.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/We-are-Turning-the-Oceans-into-Plastic-Waste-Dumps-20150218-0052.html

Marilao river, Bulacan. Date of article May 24, 2016. Would the Secretary go there and make a video attacking some companies? Nope, there are no mining firms to blame for siltation-pollution-environmental destruction of the river.

http://2016.mb.com.ph/2016/05/24/its-time-marilao-meycauayan-rivers-are-cleaned-up-says-gov/

This is a river in our barrio in Cadiz City, Negros Occ. Until about 25 yrs or more, the river width was 2x to 3x its current width. Large-scale soil erosion due to sugarcane farming upstream. Because of the narrower river, there is frequent flooding in the area, yearly, several times a year flooding.

This is obviously outside the work of DENR, this is DA, DPWH and LGU work. But it shows that large-scale soil erosion can be caused by agriculture, frequent tilling of land. I took this photo last month.

If government is to be strict in its environmental laws, it should be strict in all sectors and sub-sectors: big and small-scale mining, big and small-scale logging, tilling of farmlands, protection of rivers from solid wastes and huge soil erosion, and so on. Government should not pick just a few sectors for strict compliance and ignore the others.

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See also:

Mining 45, Presentation at UP Diliman, October 02, 2015

Mining 46, The new DENR Secretary and other watermelon activists, July 07, 2016 

Mining 47, JB Baylon on the DENR Secretary, March 01, 2017

BWorld 120, Five myths of solar-wind energy

* This is my article in BusinessWorld on March 20, 2017

Variable renewable energy (RE) like wind and solar are far out from giving humanity sufficient, stable, and cheap electricity to sustain growth and fight poverty. For the simple reasons that they are very intermittent and expensive. Below are five of the common myths that we hear and read about wind and solar.

1. Solar, wind, biomass, and other REs will replace fossil fuels as major global energy sources in the near future.

Wrong. From the projections by the two of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, these REs, which may also include geothermal, will produce only 8.5% of global energy demand (Exxon Mobil data) or 6% (British Petroleum data) by 2025.

2. The share of coal, gas, and nuclear will further decline as the world moves towards implementing the Paris Agreement of 2015.

Wrong. From both EM and BP projections, there is no let up in global use and demand for fossil fuel and nuclear sources in the near future. This is for the simple reason that people anywhere dislike power interruption even for one minute, much more frequent and involuntary outages lasting many hours, daily or weekly.

3. Solar and wind are cheaper than coal now, their overall costs will keep falling.

Wrong. The feed-in-tariff (FiT) rates or guaranteed price for 20 years for solar-wind keep rising, not declining. For first group of solar entrants, their FiT rates in Pesos/kWh were 9.68 in 2015, 9.91 in 2016, and 10.26 in 2017. For second group of solar entrants, their FiT rates were 8.69 in 2016 and 8.89 in 2017.

For wind power first group of entrants, their FiT rates in Pesos/kWh were 8.53 in 2015, 8.90, in 2016 and 9.19 in 2017. For second group of wind entrants, their FiT rates were 7.40 in 2016 and 7.72 in 2017. Only the sun and wind are free but the panels, switchyards, cables, wind turbines, towers, access roads, etc. are not.

Current power prices in Mindanao are only around P2.80/kwh as many new huge coal plants compete with each other along with hydro and geothermal plants. No additional charges.

4. Solar and wind have no social cost (SC) while the SC of coal is very high.

Wrong. Solar and wind are very land-intensive and, as a result, more areas for food, commercial, and forest production are diverted to accommodate more solar and wind farms. To have 1 MW of installed solar power, one will need about 1.5 hectare of land. So to have a 300 MW solar plant, one will need about 450 hectares of land; San Miguel power has a 300-MW coal plant in Mindanao sitting on only 30 hectares of land, or hectare/MW ratio of only 0.1 for coal vs. 1.5 for solar.

Since solar has a low capacity factor, only 18% of its installed capacity -- from 450 hectares of land with installed power of 300 MW -- can actually produce only around 54 MW.

Majestic solar, 66.3 MW in CEZA, Rosario, Cavite is not included here because it is a rooftop facility and hence, does not occupy extra land area.

5. Carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution and emission from coal power plants will further warm the planet.

Wrong. CO2 is not a pollutant or evil gas. It is a useful gas, the gas that we humans and our animals exhale, the gas that our rice, corn, flowers, trees and other plants use to produce their own food via photosynthesis. More CO2 means more plant growth, more food production, more trees regenerating naturally, which have cooling effect on land surface.

The above five myths were among the topics discussed during the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) “Roundtable on Philippine Energy Security and Competitiveness” last Friday, March 17 at UPSE in Diliman, Quezon City. The main speaker was Dr. Majah Ravago of UPSE and EPDP and she presented the main EPDP paper, Filipino 2040 Energy. The five reactors included Jose “Viking” Logarta of the ICSC and Dr. Christoph Menke of Trier University of Applied Sciences in Germany. Dr. Menke discussed the GIZ paper criticizing the EPDP paper.

Governments should not create regulations that distort the energy market away from real competition. Insisting on dishonest claims like “carbon pollution” and “renewables to save the planet” only lead to more expensive and unstable energy supply, wasteful use of land and other natural resources.

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See also: 

BWorld 114, Brownouts, ancillary services and transmission charge, March 23, 2017 

BWorld 117, Energy bureaucracy, electric cooperatives and NEA, March 28, 2017 

BWorld 118, Regulate this, prohibit that: bureaucracies in transportation, March 30, 2017 

BWorld 119, Seven myths in the mining debate, April 07, 2017

Pol. Ideology 70, Socialism and the politics of envy

Why socialists are wrong :-) 

Many people yearn for equality, forced equality in society. If this is so, then anyone can demand that his/her monthly pay be at least 10% of what Mark Zuckerberg is getting even if they work only 4 hours and complain about work for the next 4 hours each day. And since tens or hundreds of millions will demand the same, then it will mean that Zuckerberg's average monthly income will shrink and continue shrinking because the politics of envy will assault his income and wealth, endlessly via government taxation.

Free people are not equal and equal people are not free. I did not invent that quote of course, but it rings correctly until now.

Now, this quote from Chomsky was circulated by some friends in fb last week. Lousy idea of course. 

Compare friendster and facebook capitalism: costs and rewards, bankruptcy and expansion are privatized while the benefits -- to us users of these social media, past and present -- are socialized. Friendster went bankrupt while facebook prospered. And many of us enjoy facebook (and youtube, twitter, google,...) capitalism, no tears though to friendster capitalism that sank. 

Another quote from Churchill. Yes, socialism promises equality... everyone equally poor except the top officials, military generals and business cronies of the communist party or dictatorship.

There is room and role for government in a free enterprise and free market economy of course. Societies need the rule of law function of government if they want to be stable and prosperous. The poor can work double jobs and come home late night if they need to without worrying that their houses and little investments are ransacked by thieves or land grabbers. Or their extra income is eaten by more taxes and mandatory fees.

From the Iron Lady. Yes, governments have no money of their own except what they take from the people in the form of taxes, regulatory fees, mandatory contributions, fines and penalties to their numerous regulations and prohibitions. These government revenues are split between the state bureaucracies and politicians, and the welfare beneficiaries/dependents.

Inequality is good, otherwise the lazy who work only 2 hours a day and the hard-working who toil 12-14 hours a day will have the same size of house in the same village. The lazy is subsidized with free or near-free housing while the hard working is penalized with lots of taxes and fees.

There are many examples showing that many people respect inequality. When they watch a big concert, some pay $2,000, others pay $1,000, $500,... $50. But those in the $50 tickets do not call for a social revolution to have forced equality, they just enjoy the show at a low price. For those who cannot afford even the $50 ticket, they can watch the show later on tv, youtube, facebook, and so on. 

Many big capitalists enjoy big money so they can give away/donate that big money someday. Examples are numerous personal and corporate foundations whose main function is to finance many good community or research projects that will uplift the lives of poor and needy people. Civil society in action, Meanwhile, these rich and highly entrepreneurial people create more companies, build more structures and new services, create more jobs in the process.

"Government... favoring some capitalists" and "state bail out of big banks, corporations" are cronyism and statism or state worship as the state picks winners and losers. The state has no business picking winners and losers, picking who should expand or go bankrupt; it's the job of market competition.

Free enterprise capitalism allows bankruptcy and expansion happening at the same time to many players. But we don't see any free capitalism society in the planet yet. Hong Kong would approximate this society somehow but China communism ultimately dictates and limits the pace of HK capitalism, not because the commies have the intellectual and entrepreneurial superiority but simply because they have the guns, bombs and huge army of soldiers and policemen who are ready-to-harass-people if they question the powers of the communist state.

Money is not the source of evil. People will need money, cash or fiat money or credit cards or alternative currencies (bitcoin, etc.) so they can feed themselves and their family better, bring them to Boracay or Bohol or HK, etc for vacation. In the process they create jobs in Boracay or Bohol or HK as they spend money there.

Money "hoarding" is bad... No. What's hoarding for some is actually savings accumulation for others. One cannot convert his small variety/"sari-sari" store into a nice, air-con convenience store unless he/she has sufficient savings accumulation plus loans from friends/family members or banks. 

The so-called "late stage capitalism" is characterized more by bigger, stronger governments who dictate prices (wage control, fare control, rent control, price control or price caps/ceilings), dictate competition or absence of it (monopolies created by Congressional franchise or agency franchise), dictate who should get subsidies and who should not (like wind and solar power firms get plenty of subsidies).

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See also:

Pol. Ideology 67, Socialism and Venezuela, June 08, 2016 

Pol. Ideology 68, On factions and diversity in society, thoughts of James Madison, October 10, 2016 

Pol Ideology 69, Math can show that small or minimal government is optimal, March 01, 2017

BWorld 119, Seven myths in the mining debate

* This is my article in BusinessWorld on March 15, 2017.

The endless debate in mining is largely fueled by endless myths and disinformation that fan more emotionalism than reason. Below are some of these myths and the realities behind these half-truths.

1. Mining provides a small contribution to GDP, only P70 billion a year in gross value added (GVA).

Wrong. Mining GVA is P85 billion a year, average for 2010 to 2016. Also, the sectors gross value production is P166 billion a year, average for 2010 to 2015. A large part of this is from large-scale corporate mining while the reported contribution of small scale mining is very small, only about P1 billion a year in 2013-2015.

2. The mining industry’s tax payments are small and almost insignificant at only P3 billion a year.

Wrong. Total taxes, fees, and royalties paid by large-scale mining is around P23 billion a year, the P3 billion a year is only for the while the excise tax collections by the BIR. Small scale mining pay zero to the BIR, they pay only little amount to the LGUs.

3. Employment share of mining is very small at only around 100,000 workers.

Wrong. From official figures, employment in the sector is about 240,000. Excluded in the numbers are those that are indirectly hired like communities that benefit from several social development and management program (SDMPs).

4. Mining activities should be stopped since it results in large-scale environmental damage while yielding minimum benefits.

Wrong. Aside from the national income and consumption taxes (corporate income tax, VAT, excise tax, documentary stamp tax), royalties, and regulatory fees, there are plenty of mandatory contributions and community expenditures that a mining company must spend on. These include: (a) Annual Environmental protection & Enhancement Program (EPEP), (b) SDMP, (c) Community development program (CDP), (d) Environmental work program (EWP), (f) Safety and health program, others.

Then there are mandatory environmental funds; (a) Rehabilitation cash fund, (b) Mine monitoring trust fund, (c) Mine waste and tailings fees reserve fund, (d) Final mine rehabilitation and decommissioning fund, (e) Environmental trust fund, (f) Mine rehabilitation fund (MRF), others.

5. Open pit mining is very destructive and must be banned anywere.

Wrong. It looks very destructive only in the mining stage. After the minerals are mined out, the area is rehabilitated by covering them with topsoil then reforested. It is happening in Rio Tuba Nickel mining in southern Palawan and other companies.

With global cooling to follow the global warming phase, we should expect more rains, more flooding, not less. This means we should have more dams, lakes, and other water-impounding structures to reduce flash flooding during heavy rains.

Some mined out open pits are better left as big wide holes and serve as man-made lake, like Caliraya lake in Laguna. These can create new jobs via tourism, fishing and irrigation for farms, aside from reducing flash floods.

6. Closure of many mines means better investment environment because the country is getting more green.

Wrong. DENR Secretary Gina Lopez’s suspensions and closure of many firms has negative signals. There are more uncertainties in the sector now as more regulations are added on top of existing ones, each regulation costing money and time to comply with.

And these will eventually discourage investments and drive away some of the large companies that want to remain honest. The “small-scale” and illegal mining that are hardly taxed and regulated can flourish in this environment of heavy regulation.

7. Mining is entirely useless and destructive so we should have none of it.

Wrong. No mining, no modern life. No cars, no buses, no airplanes, no buildings, no electricity, not even nails, hammers and big knives to build a nipa hut or “barung-barong.”

The main purpose of government is to lay down rules that apply to all, big and small players, and enforce the laws without any exceptions. If government should be strict with big mining firms, then it should be strict with small scale mines too. If government is to promote job creation in many sectors, then government should protect jobs in compliant big mining firms too.

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See also: 

BWorld 19, Taxation and regulations in PH mining industry, September 24, 2015

BWorld 116, Urban transport myths and the jeepney strike, March 28, 2017 

BWorld 117, Energy bureaucracy, electric cooperatives and NEA, March 28, 2017 

BWorld 118, Regulate this, prohibit that: bureaucracies in transportation, March 30, 2017