Good morning, and welcome to Mining Philippines.

It is a delight to see so many people here

today. Perhaps there is truth in the old saying that misery loves company. While we think we
have solved some problems affecting our industry, others crop up, and it seems like its a never-
ending stream of challenges. But were still here, fighting the good fight.

Before anything else, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge with thanks the former
Chairman and President of the Chamber of Mines, Mr. Art Disini and Mr. Philip Romualdez, who
have served the Chamber and the industry tirelessly over many years. Weve asked them to be
here today and Id like to call them individually to come forward and receive this resolution of
appreciation.

So ladies and gentlemen we have a new leadership in the DENR, now headed by Secretary Roy
Cimatu, and we welcome him warmly to our industry, and we also have a new Mines &
Geosciences Bureau Director, Wilfredo Moncano, who is no stranger to our industry. We still
continue to be faced with a number of policy issues carried over from the previous dispensation
the issue of the ban on open pit mining, the mine audits that have spun out of control leading
to closure orders that are on appeal, and a few other things as well. We do know that the
current leadership in the DENR and in the MICC the Minerals Industry Coordinating Council
are in the process of tackling these, and we need to be patient as these things are sorted out.

We have also reorganized ourselves in the Chamber, and I think everyone in this room realizes
the need to do new things. In the press conference we held last Monday, we announced two
initiatives, and I can tell you that those elicited quite a number of questions from the media and
a lot of press, particularly on the second one.

The first is to understand very well and hopefully adopt a concept a set of protocols that is
called Towards Sustainable Mining or TSM, which has been developed by the Mining
Association of Canada. In that country, if you want to be a member of the Mining Association,
you need to subscribe to those protocols. We have invited a representative of the Mining
Association of Canada, Mr. Ben Chalmers, Vice President for Sustainable Development, to talk
to us this morning about TSM. Its an interesting program that consists of a set of tools and
indicators to drive performance and ensure that key mining risks are managed responsibly. That
program has now gone beyond Canada it is being implemented in Argentina, Finland and
Botswana and quite a few other countries are looking at this, so lets listen to him very closely.

Secondly, we have formed an Oversight Committee of the Board of Trustees. Im sure that the
functions of this Committee will evolve over time, but at the outset, what it will essentially do is
if there is an incident that has occurred in any of the operations of our member companies
serious enough to warrant an investigation as determined by the Board, the Committee using
3rd party experts as necessary, will conduct such investigation, report the results and provide
recommendations if needed.
This is a big step, but given the times we live in, the need to be transparent in everything that
we do and the continuing clamor from certain parties for some sort of policing of our members,
I would say this has now become inevitable.

There is a 3rd initiative that we still have to flesh out. Yes, there are really good examples of
responsible mining in the country, world class indeed, but if we dont talk about these and
make it known, vigorously at that, we might loose simply by default. Communicating these has
become imperative, and we need to figure out how to effectively do it, and that will constitute
our 3rd initiative.

As I mentioned in the press conference last Friday, and I will repeat again today for the benefit
of the media that are here, we must keep in mind that the Chamber does not represent the
entire universe of large-scale mines in the country. Our membership consists of copper and
gold mines and some nickel mines. There is also the Philippine Nickel Association, where most
of the nickel mines are members, and this has to be kept in mind as we move forward to
implement new initiatives that will of course only apply to our membership.

Today, we have invited Sec. Roy Cimatu as our keynote speaker. Allow me to read a brief
introduction to Sec. Cimatu, whose track record speaks for itself.

For one, he possesses critical management skills required from a head of a government agency,
having served as the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and later on
appointed as Special Envoy to the Middle East from 2002 to 2011. His commitment to facilitate
ease of doing business in the licensing and permitting systems of the DENR through online
applications is a governance framework we appreciate. One recent proof of this was when Sec.
Cimatu returned to the DENR regional offices the approval of Environment Clearance
Certificates, which the former Secretary centralized in her office. We also recognize the time
and effort Sec. Cimatu has made in visiting some mine cites as part of his industry immersion.
We know he is committed to a framework that promotes a balance between environmental
protection, natural resource management and the need to grow our resource-based industries
under the framework of our laws, and we are grateful to him for that.

Unfortunately, he cannot be with us today as he has a confirmation hearing with the

Commission on Appointments. He has entrusted what he would like to say to our industry to
Undersecretary Jonas Leones, and we are grateful to USEC Leones for his presence here today
before I call him, let me say something brief about him, because its quite interesting.

He is currently the Undersecretary for Policy, Planning and International Affairs of the DENR,
oversees the departments foreign-assisted programs and coordinates all international
environmental concerns including implementation of international environmental treaties. He
previously served as USEC for Environment and concurrent Director of the Environmental
Management Bureau. He obtained his Bachelors of Science in Forestry degree in 1990 from UP
Los Banos, passed the Foresters Board Examination in 1991, and obtained a Masters degree in
Environmental Science, UP Los Banos, in the year 2000.
As if that was not enough, he also obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree in 2005, passed the Bar
in 2006, and obtained a Masters Degree in Public Management from the Lee Kuan Yew School
of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore and the Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University. He has 26 years of experience in various technical, legal and managerial
capacities in the DENR.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us give Undersecretary Jonas Leones a warm round of applause.