Our country’s trajectory is further entrenching towards being a mainstay in the mining pipeline. It is more important than ever for us individual citizens to know the limits of how much we can tolerate — otherwise we will end up absorbing disproportionate costs of benefits we barely see. We need to know that we have rights to speak out, and we should. But in order for that to happen, we need to know what is happening to our country’s resources and why it matters. Here’s the weekly roundup for July 20-26, 2026.
Roundup:
DENR Secretary Juan Miguel Cuna stood at a forum on July 15 and said, "Responsible mining does exist," pointing to drones and social media as the reasons the government can supposedly catch bad actors faster now. He also asked small-scale miners to come in from the cold — legalize through a "minahang bayan" zone or the mobile "Permitting on Wheels" desk — as most of them are operating illegally simply because the paperwork is too hard to navigate, not because they're trying to hide anything. So the next time you hear about an illegal mining raid, it's worth asking whether that person was actually evading the law, or someone who couldn't get through the government's own front door.
[Mainstream] Philippine Resources Journal ◦ [Research & Data] MGB Region X
Meanwhile in Nueva Vizcaya, in the very same week Cuna was crediting DENR's monitoring tools for catching bad actors faster, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report on North Luzon Mineral Resources Corporation filing cyber-libel complaints against two lawyers and two community leaders from Kasibu after residents petitioned DENR on July 14 to cancel the company's mining exploration permit over inadequate consultation with the Bugkalot/Ilangot Indigenous community.
HRW's Lian Buan put it plainly, "Philippine prosecutors should dismiss criminal complaints filed by companies to silence communities raising concerns about their business operations."
The company filed its complaints four hours away from where the lawyers live, which is a common tactic to make fighting the case more expensive. The company faces no penalty for filing complaints that a UN special rapporteur says are designed to "shut down critical speech by intimidating critics into silence and draining their resources."
A 2010 anti-SLAPP rule exists but only covers environmental cases narrowly, and a bill to broaden that protection to all public-interest cases, House Bill 5592, has sat untouched in Congress since 2022 — the tool meant to stop this pattern hasn't been updated in the years it's been failing.
[Mainstream] Human Rights Watch ◦ [Research & Data] Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center
And in Nueva Vizcaya's mining neighbor to the south, OceanaGold just lost its last legal fight to avoid paying excise taxes on gold and copper it already pulled out of Didipio. The Supreme Court denied the company's final refund claim on June 18 — ₱204 million tied to 2013 and 2014 — closing out more than a decade of litigation where OceanaGold kept arguing that it started mining later than government records show. A few weeks after losing that fight for good, the company announced it's putting US$1.9 billion into Didipio to keep mining there until 2037, seven years past the original closure date. So: lose the argument over what you owe for the years you already mined, then get seven more years to mine. Is this supposed to look like a win-win?
[Root story of the implications here: Link to follow]
[Mainstream] Manila Bulletin / Investing News Network ◦ [Research & Data] Supreme Court of the Philippines / BusinessMirror
Up in Zambales, the US is funding a nickel and cobalt processing plant that could produce 20,000 metric tons a year, run by local firm Eramen Minerals. This is part of a Washington-led "Pax Silica" plan to build a critical-minerals supply chain that bypasses China. The US Trade and Development Agency is also putting $3.8 million toward studying a 250-kilometer railway to haul minerals straight to Subic Bay port. Washington bypasses China in this nickel supply chain, Eramen Minerals gets a US-funded position upgrade from ‘raw-ore exporter’ to ‘battery-material processor’, and the Philippine government gets to call this economic security. However, the plant's own feasibility study admits its water use and waste disposal are still unresolved, meaning Zambales communities are being asked to host the risk before anyone has answered where the wastewater goes.
Roots & Ripples
What is “Pax Silica” — Link to follow
Is this bad news? — Link to follow
[Mainstream] Manila Bulletin ◦ [Research & Data] Bases Conversion and Development Authority
Over in Dinagat Islands, PMDC and a string of agencies — MGB Region XIII, DENR Caraga, the provincial and municipal governments, even the Diocese of Surigao — signed a rehabilitation fund agreement on July 7 for a 2,700-hectare nickel mining project. The fund is meant to pay for environmental cleanup and compensate communities for damage, which is an admission that harm at this 2,700-hectare site is being treated as a scheduled cost of doing business, not a risk anyone is trying to avoid.
[Mainstream] Philippine Resources Journal ◦ [Research & Data] PH-EITI
On the energy side, DOE's mid-year report shows 45 power projects have gone live since April, adding 1,674 megawatts to the grid, and the country's biggest solar-and-battery project, MTerra Solar, started sending up to 85 MW into the Luzon grid. That is technically progress. But June's electricity bill still made the Philippines briefly more expensive than Singapore, at ₱12.43 per kilowatt-hour, and Meralco raised July rates again to ₱14.83/kWh, with DOE already warning of another hike in August because of fuel costs. Turns out increasing solar capacity is unrelated to the cost of our electricity bill today, and it likely will remain that way for a while. Read why here: Link to follow
[Mainstream] Daily Tribune / The Summit Express ◦ [Research & Data] Energy Regulatory Commission
And in fisheries, the DA pushed back its approved 250,000-metric-ton fish import order from August to sometime in Q4, trying to buy time before El Niño makes catches scarcer and prices worse. Fisherfolk get a temporary break from cheap imports undercutting their prices, but the delay confirms the shortfall isn't going away — just landing later once the imports finally show up. Do note: four bills meant to address the shrinking domestic catch — restoring municipal water protections, giving LGUs control over local waters, creating a dedicated fisheries department, and a fisherfolk fuel subsidy — are already filed in Congress, and none of them are moving as of this week.
Read more here: Link to follow
[Mainstream] Manila Bulletin ◦ [Research & Data] Department of Agriculture
Why this matters to us:
Florentino Daynos, a community leader in Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya, is now facing a cyber-libel complaint for supporting a stand against mining exploration on land his community holds. He didn't do anything except say no, publicly, and now he and his lawyers are fighting a legal battle four hours from home while a mining company with a government-issued exploration permit keeps operating undisturbed. The company absorbs no cost for filing the complaint even if it eventually loses; Daynos absorbs the cost of defending himself either way.
That same imbalance repeats itself in different clothes every week. OceanaGold loses a decade-long tax fight and gets seven more years at Didipio anyway. Washington and Eramen Minerals get a nickel supply chain and a funded upgrade in Zambales while the water and waste questions stay open. A diocese and several government agencies sign off on a rehabilitation fund in Dinagat that exists specifically because everyone already expects damage. In each case, the company or the government gets the win now — the mine life, the funding, the supply deal — and the people living closest to the site absorb whatever the fund, the study, or the court case doesn't yet cover.
And then there's the fisherman waiting on the DA's delayed import decision, and the household in Quezon City or anywhere else in the country opening a Meralco bill that went up again in July with another hike promised for August, even as officials announce megawatts of new solar capacity like the problem is already solved. Both are being told relief is coming while paying, right now, for decades of underbuilt infrastructure and underregulated extraction that nobody currently in power is required to answer for on any given week.
Keep reading this every week, and you stop being able to hear "responsible mining" or "energy security" as anything but a schedule of who pays and who profits.
