On the third day of the Rapu-Rapu Fact-Finding Commission (RRFFC) public hearing on the alleged mercury contamination and fish kill in Sorsogon in October 2005, Alvarez said the Australian mining firm Lafayette Philippines, Inc. (LPI) might have violated its 29-point environmental compliance certificate (ECC).

The DENR suspended the operation of LPI, a company engaged in copper and gold mining, after it spilled its wastewater into its surroundings twice on Oct. 11, and Oct. 31, 2005.

Alvarez, who granted LPI its ECC during his tenure, said the ECC was "not a license" and that officials of the Australian mining company must "follow a step-by-step mandate."

"The Office of the Secretary has to personally monitor the construction of facilities of the Lafayette," Alvarez said.

"In this case the lapses were egregious, but the (DENR) secretary has also to be penalized," he said, referring to his successor, former Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Elisea Gozun.

Alvarez pointed out that he gave the LPI an ECC on July 12, 2001, with conditions that mandated LPI’s strict compliance to environmental laws, based on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) study submitted by a team from the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB), and instructions for monitoring by the DENR.

However, strict enforcement of ECC conditions may have been insufficient and that the mining firm could have violated its ECC, he said.

"Even though the ECC was thoroughly reviewed by me, together with a team of EMB-Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) experts, I still recommended at least 29 terms and conditions prior to its approval to make it a thorough safeguard against environmental disasters," Alvarez said.

"The DENR must from now on be alert and on top of critical projects like this. The multi-partite monitoring committees all over the country must be strengthened to be supported by the mining companies in the provinces so that it will not be reduced to mere taking of samplings," the former DENR chief said.

"I also recommend that this multi-partite committee operates with technical staffing and it should meet at least once a month to assess their repeated samplings," he added.

In the first public hearing last Tuesday, a DENR officer admitted the LPI operating a Polymetallic Project on Barangay Pagcolbon, Rapu-Rapu, Albay is not a responsible miner. DENR-MGB Bicol Regional Director Reynaldo San Juan said that Lafayette did not do a "best practice" act based on the two mine spills that happened in October last year.

"Because of this we suspended and penalized them," he said.

The fact- finding body, headed by Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes, was commissioned by the Office of the President to conduct an investigation on the mine spill and operation of the Lafayette.