BAGUIO CITY – Local officials, extractive industry representatives, government and civil society groups backed the snowballing clamor for the passage of a law institutionalizing the Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (PH-EITI) to ensure the mainstreaming, continuity, and sustainability of its valuable work and contribution to the country’s sustainable development.
More than 150 delegates from local governments, government agencies, extractive industry companies and civil society groups made the call during the Baguio leg of the PH-EITI Road Show 2018 with the theme ‘Moving Beyond Transparency: Integrating Extractives Disclosure and Dialogue in Local Development.”
The road show attendees expressed belief that the PH-EITI organization, principles, objectives, and processes are not only relevant to but also necessary for the inclusive, transparent, and accountable governance of the country’s natural resources.
PH-EITI was created in 2013 by virtue of Executive Order (EO) No. 147 pursuant to EO No. 79, series of 2012 where the Philippine government committed to implement the extractive industries transparency initiative, the global standard for the good governance of oil, gas and mineral resources..
After undergoing international validation, the Philippines was declared by the EITI Board in October 2017 as the first among more than 50 countries implementing EITI worldwide to have achieved satisfactory progress in complying with the 2016 EITI standard.
For the past five years, PH-EITI has progressively built a multi-stakeholder system for data disclosure and dialogue and harnessed the power of transparency to pool together government, industry and civil society to ensure that the country’s mineral, oil and gas resources redound to the benefit of Filipinos.
To date, PH-EITI published 4 country reports containing comprehensive contextual information about the Philippine extractive sectors as well as independently reconciled data on payments or revenues from oil, gas and mining companies, government agencies and local governments.
The latest report builds on its predecessors and moves EITI implementation even further with the coverage of 2 fiscal years, 2015-2016, pilot reporting on the non-metallic mining sector, improved local government reporting from use of the enhanced environment and natural resources data management tool pursuant to Department of Finance Order No. 49-2016 and updates on government reforms being done as regards the extractive sectors.
The 4th PH-EITI report comprises data from 8 government agencies, 61 local government units hosting extractive operations, 30 large-scale metallic and 5 non-metallic mining companies and 5 oil and gas companies, covering P26.98 billion and P27.40 billion in revenues in 2015 and 2016, respectively.
Every PH-EITI report communicates the latest report findings through the PH-EITI National Conference and nationwide PH-EITI road shows. The National Conference that launched the 4th report was recently held last April 18, 2018 at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).
By Dexter A. See
