Camarines Sur Gov. Villafuerte scores ‘illegal’ mining pact

Gov. Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The governor of Camarines Sur has threatened to file graft charges against mining officials and executives of a government-owned corporation for a “questionable” mining deal that bypasses local government regulatory powers over mining activities in their localities.

In particular, a memorandum of agreement forged recently by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)—through its Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB)—with the Partido Development Administration (PDA) allegedly contravenes at least three laws and a DENR regulation in depriving the provincial government of Camarines Sur of its own regulatory powers over mining-related activities in its area, according to Governor Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr.

This agreement, which empowers the PDA (instead of the Camarines Sur provincial government) to endorse, clear or approve mining applications in the province’s 4th legislative district prior to action by the DENR-MGB, also violates the law creating the PDA, he said.

Villafuerte said the PDA’s own charter “neither clothes it with such powers nor authorizes it to engage in mining through joint venture with private investors.”

“The MOA is legally infirm because it usurps the powers of the province of Camarines Sur; it is an abdication of the powers of the MGB; and it unlawfully authorizes the PDA to undertake ultra vires acts,” Villafuerte said in a letter to Environment Secretary Ramon Paje. “Thus, it clearly usurps the power granted unto the province of Camarines Sur as an LGU.”

Villafuerte told Paje that key DENR, MGB and PDA officials could be held criminally and administratively liable for violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act in entering into the deal.

In particular, he noted that the MOA “deprives the provincial government of regulatory powers over all mining activities in Camarines Sur; and compels the MGB to abdicate its recommendatory and advisory functions to a three-member panel composed of PDA and bureau representatives.”

The MOA was signed by PDA administrator Rosa Catolico and MGB’s acting director Leo Jasareno. Daxim L. Lucas