THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources said over the weekend that there was no need to seek legal opinion from the Department of Justice over the passage of the Zamboanga del Norte ordinance banning open pit mining in the province.

DENR Secretary Ramon Paje said the agency would take the position of the Department of Interior and Local Government, which supervised local government units.

“When South Cotabato handed down an open pit ban last year threatening the $5.9 billion Tampakan copper-gold project, DILG Secretary Jessie Robredo said in a letter to provincial board that this is against national laws. We support that position,” Paje said.

“We will defer to our fellow Cabinet secretary since DILG deals directly with LGUs,” the DENR chief said.

Zamboanga del Norte’s ordinance, which took effect on November 6 after three publications in local newspapers, is considered more severe than that of South Cotabato.

TVI Pacific Inc., through its Philippine affiliate TVI Resource Development Inc., earlier filed a petition before the Dipolog City Regional Trial Court seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the implementation of ordinance.

TVIRD asked the court to prevent the provincial government of Zamboanga del Norte from implementing the ordinance, saying was “unconstitutional and invalid” since it violated the due process, equal protection and non-impairment of contracts clauses of the 1987 Constitution.

TVIRD said the ordinance was contrary to the applicable provisions of the Local Government Code and the Mining Act, and ran counter to the public policies espoused in these laws.

“In addition to affecting the company directly, [the ordinance] would adversely affect the indigenous people who own the ancestral domain where the mining project is situated, the communities and barangays that benefit through the operations’ social development programs,” TVIRD said.

The national government stands not only to lose the revenue from the mining operations but also hamper its policy to encourage investment in the mining industry, the company said.

Earlier, TVI Pacific said it was ready to file a series of legal actions to prevent the implementation of a provincial ordinance. The ordinance bans new open-pit or open cut mines in the province, and causes the closure of existing open-pit mines starting November 2012.

The Canadian miner earlier said the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Zamboanga del Norte approved the passage of the ordinance with no advance notice to TVI Pacific or its unit TVIRD.

Besides TVIRD, which operates a copper-zinc mine is Siocon town, the new ordinance will derail Philex Gold Philippines Inc., which plans to revive its gold project in Sibutad municipality.

Last Wednesday, Philex Mining Corp. said it will deliberate on what course of action to take in light of the recent development in Zamboanga del Norte.

“We understand that TVI filed for a TRO and we are still at this point as retaining on taking a similar course of action or some other remedy that is available to us since we don’t really have meaningful operation at Zamboanga apart from our exploration in the Sibutad property,” Dennis Lucindo, Philex vice president for business development, said.

“For us, if we take action it’s not so much for the sake of the operations we have there, its because this could be a land mark case for the Philippine Mining Act versus whatever local ordinance takes. So if we take action, it would be [to] the benefit of a broader context,” the executive added.

The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines earlier expressed deep concern over the passing of a provincial ordinance, saying this will send conflicting signals to potential investors.

The COMP said the ordinance’s onerous terms—including new provincial regulatory powers over large mining operations that “clearly usurp the authority of the national government”—were grossly unconstitutional.