A Contingent Liability and Rehabilitation Fund (CLRF) basically, is a guarantee fund mechanism (held in a trust fund) to ensure there is adequate money for compensation of environmental damages attributed to mining, quarrying, processing activities after investigation and implementation of mitigation, enhancement, and rehabilitation measures as required in the Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) and Environmental Management Plan (EMP). But, what about mining companies where CLRF is not in-place like in the case of Maricalum Mining Corporation (MMC). The company has been in care and maintenance status since July 1, 2001. Since then, MMC failed to comply with the Tenement conditions as well as the Safety, Health, Environmental, and Social Development (SHES) requirements which resulted in the cancellation of the company’s Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) No. 120- 98-VI on October 9, 2019. There is no conduct of final mine decommissioning while the company has a pending appeal to the Cancellation Order. Maintenance of the environmental structures is left unattended by the company. Government Agencies including the Local Government Units (LGUs) cannot act while the appeal has no final decision.
With all the findings and recommendations on the monitoring and assessments conducted and with no proper action undertaken, the company’s Tailings Pond No. 2 (TP-2) had been scoured and breached releasing tailings material which flows water through the scoured portion of the dike. With no action from the company, the City of Sipalay LGU stepped in to mitigate the impact of the incident by utilizing its resources. But, with the limited resources of the LGU, they can only commit to counterpart but cannot shoulder the whole expenses. With this, a question surface, who will shoulder the rehabilitation, and are there sources of funds readily available to swiftly respond to such a level of an incident?
This paper will provide information on the breaching of a portion of TP-2 and the efforts of LGU Sipalay City to mitigate and prevent further damage to TP-2 and its total collapse which may lead to disaster causing widespread environmental pollution.