KORONADAL CITY—The municipal council of Tampakan, South Cotabato province, has sought the lifting of the open-pit mining ban that hampered the development of Southeast Asia’s largest known copper and gold mine for the last decade. 589 on March 15 urging the provincial government to review its 2010 Environment Code, specifically Section 22 that banned open-pit mining in the province. ADVERTISEMENTFor years, Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI) has been pursuing the Tampakan project, intending to extract the area’s mammoth deposits using the open-pit mining method but was blocked by the open-pit mining ban in the province. Only the mining ban impedes the realization of the Tampakan project, the council’s resolution added. In October last year, Judge Vicente Peña of South Cotabato’s Regional Trial Court Branch 24, ruled against a petition to revoke the prohibition, saying the open-pit mining ban in the province remained valid.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer March 28, 2021 20:37 UTC