Before Duterte, mining revenues already down for 5th straight month

MANILA, Philippines - Mining revenues of the national government suffered a fifth straight month of decline last May, putting them on track to beating last year's four-year low as the Duterte administration cracks down against irresponsible mining.

Excise taxes from mining and mineral products dropped 12.44 percent to P96.15 million that month, data from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) showed.

That was the slowest decrease recorded in the first five months of the year that saw revenues plummet 33.6 percent in April, 30.08 percent in March, 42.8 percent in February and 39.58 percent in January.

But there are risks the decline could accelerate once again after seven mining operations have been suspended since the new government took over last June 30.

"You definitely can see further slowdown down the road," said Emmanuel Lopez, economics department chair at the University of Santo Tomas.

"More or less, what you are seeing now in the industry--the declining shares of stocks and resignation of Bobby Ongpin--will reflect on government revenues," he said in a phone interview.

Businessman Roberto Ongpin resigned as chairman of PhilWeb Corp. last Thursday after being singled out by Duterte on his speech lambasting "oligarchs."

Ongpin was separately fined P174 million and barred from listed firms by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) related to an insider trading case involving Philex Mining Corp. in 2009.

The Court of Appeals however stopped SEC from enforcing its decision upon Ongpin's appeal. SEC said it would ask for a reconsideration.

Lopez said the mining revenue decline could even turn for the worse, should more mining firms get suspended by Environment Secretary Gina Lopez, a staunch anti-mining advocate.

This, even as Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said earlier that the government is not against all forms of mining, but only those that do damage to the environment.

"Mining's share in revenues is very small. It's very very minimal and not significant," Lopez said.

"Whatever we will lose from it, we could easily recover from other sources," he added.

Last year, mining excise revenues totaled P2.08 billion, the lowest since 2011, BIR data showed. As of May, revenues already went down by more than a quarter to P668.83 million.

BIR, the government's main revenue agency, accounts for 80 percent of state revenues.

As of June, it increased its collections by 11 percent to P783.4 billion, data showed.