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Economic growth is driven by the increase in production of economic goods and services through a period of time (Amadeo, 2022). The accounted economic output or the Gross Domestic Product are sourced from the natural resources of the country. Among the natural resources and in the course of mineral extraction, sand and gravel mineral aggregates has become the fastest growing and most extracted material group over the 21st century (Bisht, 2021). According to McGill University (2021), global aggregate consumption has been between 32 to 50 billion tonnes per year and that the Lower and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) are projected to increase in production in the succeeding years. Sand and gravel consumption relatively increased in relation to the Build Build Build Program of the Duterte administration way back 2017 for the rapid urban expansion including the increasing population and increasing standard of living (Gavriletea, 2017). There have been 112 projects all over the country that needs to be constructed focused on the various sectors such as transport and mobility, urban development, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), water resources, health and power and energy (NEDA, 2021). Prior to this initiative, the government had been implementing projects annually to bridge the infrastructure gaps especially in the rural areas. With the massive economic and infrastructure growth, mining of aggregate minerals such as sand and gravel is of great importance providing employment opportunities to a considerable section of the labor force and serves as an asset for construction industry. As demand on aggregate increases in construction industry, conflicts for the availability of the resource and environmental impacts become more intense (Bisht, 2021). An increase in demand for sand and gravel for construction purposes has placed immense pressure on sand and gravel resources. Therefore, the extraction of these two important construction aggregates is bound to have considerable negative effect on the place where they occur (Ako, et al., 2014). This continuous demand for sand and gravel for the continuous growth of infrastructure leads to social, environmental and political issues. Ensuring supply of sand and gravel aggregates and achieving the needs of society without compromising the environment has become a challenging issue. Evidently, a well-structured response to aggregate supply with sustainable and environmental criteria is establishing aggregate planning policies that get an optimal balance between demand-supply of mineral raw materials and environmental protection. Defining limits and restriction regulations is one of the measures applied by authorities in order excessive removal of river sand-gravels to be altered and a sustainable riverine mining to be ensured. Therefore, this paper attempts to assess and evaluate the supply of aggregate materials against the demand for infrastructure projects of the government in the Province of Iloilo for Calendar Year 2021.

 

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